REDATING SCHOENBERG’S ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE
TWELVE-TONE METHOD: A STUDY OF RECOLLECTIONS*
FUSAKO HAMAO
I
n commenting on a 1936 article by Richard Hill, Arnold Schoenberg recalled how he announced his new compositional method, based on twelve tones, to his students:
At the very beginning, when I used for the first time rows of twelve tones in the fall of
1921, I foresaw the confusion which would arise in case I were to make publicly known
this method. Consequently I was silent for nearly two years. And when I gathered about
twenty of my pupils together to explain to them the new method in 1923, I did it because
I was afraid to be taken as an imitator of Hauer, who, at this time, published his Vom
Melos zur Pauke.1
In addition to the above statement, Schoenberg’s reminiscence of the meeting appears three
times in his writings between 1940 and 1950.2 Together, these recollections convey the following
outline of events that led to the announcement: Schoenberg composed his first twelve-tone piece
in 1921, during his summer sojourn in Traunkirchen. He explained the method to Erwin Stein as
“a witness,” and asked him to keep it secret as long as necessary to protect the idea. Sometime
after Schoenberg returned home to Mödling, however, he found that Josef Matthias Hauer had
employed a similar compositional method. To demonstrate that he had not been influenced by
Hauer, Schoenberg gathered his students and friends at his house, and unveiled the secret.
*
This article is an extensively revised version of my working paper, “Reconstructing Schoenberg’s Early
Lectures” (2007). I would like to thank Dr. Deborah H. How for providing updated information about the recent
studies on Schoenberg’s announcement, and for sharing her research and thoughts on this subject.
1
Arnold Schoenberg, “Schoenberg’s Tone-Rows” (1936), in Style and Idea, ed. Leonard Stein, trans. Leo Black
(London: Faber and Faber, 1975), 213. The Hill article is Richard S. Hill, “Schoenberg’s Tone-Rows and the Tonal
System of the Future,” Musical Quarterly 22/1 (1936): 14–37.
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© 2011 NEWFOUND PRESS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. ISSN: 1938-6690
A MUSIC-THEORETICAL MATRIX: ESSAYS IN HONOR OF ALLEN FORTE (PART III)
Figure 1 provides a comparison of Schoenberg’s recollections (quoted and cited in full in
Appendix I). Each statement is identified by the year in which it was made, and hereafter these
dates will be used in citations (e.g., Schoenberg (1936)). The composer consistently remembers
that he developed the new method in 1921, and that he told Stein about the finding (although
Schoenberg (1936) omits reference to Stein’s involvement, as indicated in the second column of
the table).3 His statements are compatible in these respects, and yet his description of the date of
the announcement meeting (as it will henceforth be called) varies from recollection to recollection, as indicated in the third column.
The announcement meeting was also mentioned by Schoenberg’s students Josef
Polnauer, Max Deutsch, Felix Greissle, Rudolf Kolisch, Erwin Ratz, Josef Rufer, and Edward
Steuermann.4 Their memories about the date vary as well. Statements that indicate the year was
1923 are listed in Figure 2a; those that cite a different year, or do not indicate a date at all, are
listed in Figure 2b. Most of these recollections were delivered orally, as shown in the fifth
column of each table: two items are cited in Walter Szmolyan’s “Die Geburtsstätte der
Zwölftontechnik” (“The Birthplace of the Twelve-Tone Technique”), which includes the
speeches of Schoenberg’s students; and five items are from Joan Allen Smith’s Schoenberg and
His Circle: A Viennese Portrait, which is an oral history of Schoenberg’s life, based on her
interviews of his students and contemporaries.5
2
See Appendix I for the full quotations and citations.
The involvement of Stein is also discussed in Schoenberg, “Priority” (10–11 September 1932), trans. in Joseph
Auner, A Schoenberg Reader: Documents of a Life (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 2003), 237.
4
In this essay, reference to “Schoenberg’s students” includes also former students who were involved in the
Schoenberg circle, such as Anton Webern and Alban Berg.
5
Walter Szmolyan, “Die Geburtsstätte der Zwölftontechnik,“ Österreichische Musikzeitschrift 26/3 (1971):
113–26; and Joan Allen Smith, Schoenberg and His Circle: A Viennese Portrait (New York: Schirmer Books,
1986).
3
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FIGURE 1. Schoenberg’s recollections of the announcement meeting
Statement
year
Time of his
“finding” the
new method
Time of the
meeting
His motivation
Who was at the
meeting
Other comments
1936
Fall 1921
1923
“I was afraid to be
taken as an imitator of
Hauer, who, at this
time, published his
Vom Melos zur
Pauke.”
“About twenty of
my pupils.”
“I was silent for
nearly two years.”
1940
1921; told Erwin
Stein
1924
“I had become aware
that Hauer had also
written twelve-tone
music.”
“All my students
and friends.”
“Curiously when I
had shown the four
basic forms,
Webern confessed
that he had written
also something in
12 tones….”
1950a
1921; showed
Erwin Stein
Sometime after
Schoenberg
showed Stein the
new method
“Friends and
pupils”; Hauer.
1950b
Fall 1921; called
Erwin Stein to
come to
Traunkirchen
A few years after
the First World
War
“Hauer tried similar
procedures, and if I
were to escape the
danger of being his
imitator, I had to
unveil my secret.”
“I heard rumors about
Hauer’s Tropenlehre,
which would have
made me appear as a
plagiarist of Hauer.”
“My friends and
acquaintances.”
Nearly half of the recollections cited in Figures 1 and 2 indicate 1923 as the year of the
announcement, but the rest do not affirm this dating. A question thus arises: is the variance in
dating due to inaccurate memories or some other kind of confusion? Uncertainties or misunderstandings certainly might have occurred, as Schoenberg’s statements were written between 1936
and 1950, long after the events occurred, and his students’ remembrances were recorded even
later. And the fact that most of the latter were delivered orally also complicates matters; as Smith
points out, “oral history is better at setting a scene than at providing technical detail.”6 Dates may
be the first details to be questioned in terms of their reliability.
6
Smith, Schoenberg and His Circle, x.
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FIGURE 2A. Schoenberg’s students’ recollections of the meeting, with the year indicated as 1923
Student
Date claimed
Where
Who was there
Source (see Works Cited
for full description)
Josef Polnauer
1959
“A February
morning in
1923.”
Spring 1923
Schoenberg’s
house in
Mödling
Mödling
“Some friends and
pupils.”
Josef Rufer 1971
Spring 1923
Mödling
“All students who were
present in Vienna at that
time.” Stein “took the
minutes [Protokoll]” and
wrote “Neue Formprinzipien” based on his
notes.
Speech delivered on 6
December 1959. In
Szmolyan (1971): 117.
French television
program filmed in
October 1970. In
Szmolyan (1971): 118.
Rufer, “Begriff und
Funktion” (1971): 282.
Max Deutsch
1973
“In 1923,
when he
[Schoenberg]
came back
from
Amsterdam.”
Schoenberg’s
house in
Mödling
Erwin Ratz 1973
1923; after
Schoenberg
had written the
Piano Suite
Max Deutsch
1970
“Erwin Stein recorded
everything [hat alles
protokolliert].”
Interview by Joan Allen
Smith on 21 November
1973. In Smith,
Schoenberg and His
Circle [SHC] (1986),
202.
“His group of students”;
“people who had a
private interest”; “later
circle of students, to
some extent the older
ones” (e.g., Berg,
Webern, Polnauer).
Interview by Smith on 8
November 1973. In
Smith, SHC (1986), 204
and 208.
Despite these problems, 1923 has been generally accepted as the year of the announcement, based on the number of recollections that support it. However, the contestability of this
dating has received greater emphasis in recent studies, due to the publication of newly uncovered
source documents related to the announcement. In this essay, I will take this new information
into consideration and reexamine the recollections of Schoenberg and his students. In doing so, I
aim to clarify the chronology of the events that occurred during this crucial period of Schoenberg’s musical development, and gain a better understanding of when his announcement actually
took place.
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FIGURE 2B. Schoenberg’s students’ recollections of the meeting, without a 1923 indication
Student
Date claimed
Where
Who was there
Source (see Works Cited
for full description)
Eduard
Steuermann
1959
“One
morning.”
Schoenberg’s
house in
Mödling
“Pupils and friends of
Schoenberg”; “Webern
was present, but not
Berg”; “Webern … said
to me on our way home:
That’s it! I always had
the feeling ….”
“The Possibilities and
Impossibilities,”
originally written for a
lecture, on 3 September
1959. In Steuermann
(1989), 58–59.
Felix Greissle
1965
“About 1925.”
“All of his students and
friends”; Berg, Webern,
Wellesz, Steuermann,
Stein, “and many others”;
“[Webern] was the one
who resisted most.”
Interview by Hans Keller,
BBC, on 4 November
1965. Partial
transcription appears in
Smith, SHC (1986), 198.
“He called us all together”; “only the small
circle of his”; Hauer was
not there.
Interview by Smith on 4
June and 15 December
1973. In Smith, SHC
(1986), 204–206.
“[People] close to
Schoenberg like Wellesz
… [and] Adler”; Hauer
“was not on that day
there, but a little later, he
invited Hauer on one
Sunday”; “Webern had a
hard time ….”
“Alban Berg, Anton
Webern, Erwin Stein,
Egon Wellesz, Hanns
Eisler, Karl Rankl,
(Josef) Rufer, Erwin
Ratz, (Eduard) Steuermann, Schoenberg’s
daughter Gertrud,
(Ot[h]mar) Steinbauer, ( )
Trauneck … it is possible
that there were still other
people.”
Interview by Smith on 21
November 1973. In
Smith, SHC (1986), 202–
203 and 206–208.
Mödling
Rudolf Kolisch
1973
Felix Greissle
1973
After
Schoenberg
“came across
an article of
Hauer.”
Felix Greissle
1979
“I believe it
was earlier
[than 1923]”;
“in 1922, soon
after we came
back to
Mödling.”
In Muxeneder, “Arnold
Schönbergs Verkündung
der Zwölftonmethode”
(2005): 307.
PREVIOUS STUDIES OF SCHOENBERG’S ANNOUNCEMENT AND
PRESENT STRATEGIES FOR INVESTIGATION
Among the recollections of Schoenberg’s students, that of Josef Polnauer, delivered in a
speech on 6 December 1959, is especially well known—probably because it was one of the earliest recollections, and also because it indicated the date specifically, as February 1923:
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When Arnold Schönberg gathered together some friends and pupils in his house in
Mödling on a February morning in 1923, to talk about the basic ideas of his method and
to demonstrate them with some examples from his latest compositions, a new chapter in
the history of music began.7
In a 1979 text on Webern, Hans and Rosaleen Moldenhauer note that the announcement meeting
took place one morning in February 1923, and that this event “coincided, quite by chance, with
the Vienna performance of [Webern’s] Passacaglia,” 17 February 1923.8 Probably due to this
description, the editors of The Berg–Schoenberg Correspondence, published in 1987, identify the
date of the meeting as 17 February 1923. In a footnote attached to Alban Berg’s letter of 2 September 1923, they write:
Schoenberg officially introduced close friends and students to his concept of twelve-tone
composition on 17 February of that year [1923], at which time Erwin Stein took notes
that he later published in the article “Neue Formprinzipien.”9
As a result, “February 1923” or “17 February 1923” became widely accepted as the date of the
meeting in Schoenberg literature.10
7
Szmolyan, “Die Geburtsstätte der Zwölftontechnik,” 117. Quoted from the English trans. on the website of the
Arnold Schönberg Center (hereafter ASC): http://www.schoenberg.at/index.php?option=com_content&view=article
&id=380&Itemid=184&lang=en (see under the year 1923).
8
Hans Moldenhauer and Rosaleen Moldenhauer, Anton von Webern: A Chronicle of His Life and Work (New
York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979), 252; see also 663, n. 16.
9
The Berg–Schoenberg Correspondence: Selected Letters, ed. Juliane Brand, Christopher Hailey, and Donald
Harris (New York: W. W. Norton, 1987), 330, n. 3. In the new German edition of the Berg–Schoenberg correspondence, the date has been changed to February 1923; see Briefwechsel Arnold Schönberg–Alban Berg, Teilband II:
1918–1935, ed. Juliane Brand, Christopher Hailey, and Andreas Meyer (Mainz: Schott, 2007), 208, n. 395.
10
For examples of references to a “February 1923” meeting, see the following: Smith, Schoenberg and His
Circle, 197; Ena Steiner, “Schoenberg on Holiday: His Six Summers on Lake Traun,” Musical Quarterly 72/1
(1986), 49; Bryan R. Simms, “Who First Composed Twelve-Tone Music, Schoenberg or Hauer?,” Journal of the
Arnold Schoenberg Institute 10/2 (1987), 123; Martina Sichardt, Die Entstehung der Zwölftonmethode Arnold
Schönbergs (Mainz: Schott, 1990), 7; Anne C. Shreffler, “‘Mein Weg geht jetzt voriber’: The Vocal Origins of
Webern’s Twelve-Tone Composition,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 47/2 (1994), 286; Lauriejean
Reinhardt, “Anton Webern’s ‘Mein Weg geht jetzt vorüber,’ Op. 15, No. 4,” in The Rosaleen Moldenhauer Memorial: Music History from Primary Sources: A Guide to the Moldenhauer Archives, ed. Jon Newsom and Alfred
Mann (Washington: Library of Congress, 2000), 458; Alexander L. Ringer, Arnold Schönberg: Das Leben im Werk
(Stuttgart: Metzler, 2002), 37; Allen Shawn, Arnold Schoenberg’s Journey (New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux,
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However, Thomas Brezinka challenges this dating in his 2005 study of Erwin Stein. He
points out that Stein had stayed in Darmstadt between December 1922 and late March 1923 due
to a knee injury—despite the fact that Deutsch (1970) recalled the presence of Stein at the meeting, as the one who “recorded everything.”11 As shown in the fourth column of Figure 2a, Rufer
(1971) notes that Stein wrote his “Neue Formprinzipien” based on the minutes he took.12
Because Stein could not have attended the meeting if it had taken place in February 1923, and
because he had returned to Mödling for the first time on 30 April 1923, Brezinka suggests that
the meeting must have occurred in May 1923, before Schoenberg left for his summer residence
in Traunkirchen on 1 June 1923.13
The unreliability of Polnauer’s dating is further addressed by Áine C. Heneghan, who
argues that “the date of 17 February 1923, or indeed the date of February 1923, has little or no
foundation (since it is informed only by Polnauer’s recollection in 1959).”14 Whereas Brezinka
assumes Stein’s presence at the 1923 meeting, Heneghan presumes his absence, offering a letter
from Stein to Rufer as new evidence.15 In this letter of 14 August 1957, Stein states that he must
have been in Darmstadt when Schoenberg first explained the new method to his students.
2002), 197; and Briefwechsel Arnold Schönberg–Alban Berg, Teilband II: 1918–1935, 208, n. 395. For references to
a “17 February 1923” meeting, see Arved Mark Ashby, “Schoenberg, Boulez, and Twelve-Tone Composition as
‘Ideal Type,’” Journal of the American Musicological Society 54/3 (2001), 593; Jennifer Shaw, “New Performance
Sources and Old Modernist Productions: Die Jakobsleiter in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” Journal of
Musicology 19/3 (2002), 450, n. 58; and Auner, A Schoenberg Reader, 173.
11
“Erwin Stein hat alles protokolliert” (Thomas Brezinka, Erwin Stein: Ein Musiker in Wien und London
[Vienna: Böhlau, 2005], 191).
12
Erwin Stein, “Neue Formprinzipien,” in Arnold Schönberg zum fünfzigsten Geburtstage, 13. September 1924,
Sonderheft der Musikblätter des Anbruch 6 (1924): 286–303; reprinted in Von neuer Musik: Beiträge zur Erkenntnis
der neuzeitlichen Tonkunst, ed. Heinrich Grues, Engel Kruttge, and Else Thalheimer (Cologne at the Rhine: F. J.
Marcan, 1925): 59–77; trans. Hans Keller as “New Formal Principles,” in Stein, Orpheus in New Guises (London:
Rockliff, 1953): 57–77.
13
Brezinka, Erwin Stein, 191.
14
Áine C. Heneghan, “Tradition as Muse: Schoenberg’s Musical Morphology and Nascent Dodecaphony”
(Ph.D. dissertation, Univ. of Dublin, Trinity College, 2006), 149. I would like to thank Dr. Heneghan for sending me
a copy of her dissertation.
15
Heneghan, “Tradition as Muse,” 150–151.
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Because he was absent from the meeting, and because his “Neue Formprinzipien” covers
Schoenberg’s Opp. 23, 24, and 25 (which had still been in progress in February 1923 and was
completed in April), Heneghan suggests that the meeting “took place during the spring of 1923,
most likely in April when Schoenberg had composed Opp. 23, 24, and 25 but before Stein had
returned to Vienna.”16 With regard to Rufer’s recollection of Stein as present and taking notes,
Heneghan speculates that Rufer possibly “had confused this formal announcement with an earlier
series of lectures, to which only a small number of students/close friends were privy and at
which Stein may have taken notes since he was based at that time in Vienna.”17
The existence of a pre-1923 lecture series had already been noted by Bryan R. Simms in
his 1987 article, “Who First Composed Twelve-Tone Music, Schoenberg or Hauer?” In it,
Simms introduced Schoenberg’s draft of a letter to Josef Matthias Hauer, dated 25 July 1922.18
The letter was never sent to Hauer, but instead was inserted into Schoenberg’s copy of Hauer’s
article “Sphärenmusik,” which appeared in the Berlin journal Melos in June 1922. In this draft,
Schoenberg explains to Hauer that he had already disclosed his new compositional method to his
students in a few lectures given several months before July 1922, although he admits that “I am
not so far advanced that I can make the fruits of my inquiries public.”19 Simms notes that previously it has “been thought that Schoenberg met with students for this purpose only in February
1923.”20 He then wonders, “[w]ho were the students who received the preview,” and speculates
that “Webern was almost certainly among them.”
16
Heneghan, “Tradition as Muse,” 151–152. Brezinka’s information, about Stein’s return to Vienna in late
March (see Erwin Stein, 88 and n. 319), was apparently not available to Heneghan at the time of her writing.
17
Heneghan, “Tradition as Muse,” 152.
18
Simms, “Who First Composed Twelve-Tone Music,” 122.
19
Simms, “Who First Composed Twelve-Tone Music,” 122.
20
Simms, “Who First Composed Twelve-Tone Music,” 123.
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Indeed, Webern’s presence on this occasion is confirmed by his letter to Heinrich
Jalowetz, dated 7 January 1922, which became available in 1999 with the publication of Anton
Webern: Briefe an Heinrich Jalowetz.21 In this letter, Webern reports to Jalowetz—a former
student of Schoenberg and a good friend of Webern—about a series of lectures delivered by
Schoenberg on his new compositional method:
Schoenberg is speaking to us all in a series of lectures—at his house—on a technical
corollary, or, perhaps better, on a new type of motivic work that he is now using (it’s not
only that—it’s hard to formulate it briefly) and with it he unfolds the entire development
of, if I may say so, our technique (harmony, etc.)—purely theoretically—this for the first
time, together with his recent works. Just imagine that almost everything that has occupied me for about ten years is being discussed. It is almost too exciting. The impetus was
a composition by Hauer, published in “Melos” (a Berlin journal). In this piece—
Präludium für Celesta—Schoenberg thought that he saw the beginnings of something
similar to what he lately had put to use, in the piano pieces that he wrote in 1921 during
the summer in Traunkirchen. This is what I mentioned above. And so as not to be seen as
a plagiarist of Mr. Hauer, he is describing these things that he found long ago. The matter
rests harmonically and melodically on the twelve-tone scale, which Schoenberg now considers the basis of our music. Its theory is already in the new edition of the Harmonielehre. Too bad that you can’t hear these lectures. By the way, they are being taken down.
I will get you a copy as soon as possible.22
According to Webern, Schoenberg gathered all of his students at his house, after he saw
Josef Matthias Hauer’s Präludium für Celesta, which was published in Melos 3/1, dated 1
November 1921. Therefore, the lecture series must have started sometime after that publication
date, but before Webern wrote the above letter of 7 January 1922. Because this was a series of
lectures, it is conceivable that it continued until the early months of 1922. This period fits well
with Schoenberg’s description of the lectures in his draft letter to Hauer: “a few” lectures were
21
Anton Webern: Briefe an Heinrich Jalowetz, Publications of the Paul Sacher Foundation, vol. 7, ed. Ernst
Lichtenhahn (Mainz: Schott, 1999), 497–501. The underlining is Webern’s own.
22
Anton Webern: Briefe an Heinrich Jalowetz, 499; trans. in Deborah H. How, “Arnold Schoenberg’s Prelude
from the Suite for Piano, Op. 25: From Composition with Twelve Tones to the Twelve-Tone Method” (Ph.D.
dissertation, Univ. of Southern California, 2009), 54. I would like to thank Dr. How for sending me a copy of her
dissertation.
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delivered several months before July 1922. Consequently, Webern and Schoenberg must have
been referring to the same lecture series in their letters.
Webern also notes that the lecture series was “being taken [i.e., written] down.” Regarding a transcript, Simms suggests that an anonymous and undated typescript titled “Komposition
mit zwölf Tönen” (“Composition with Twelve Tones,” hereafter KzT) “almost certainly consists
of notes made from a lecture given by Schoenberg in 1922 or 1923 concerning twelve-tone composition in its early stage of development.”23 KzT is an unfinished typescript, housed in the Alban
Berg Nachlaß at the Austrian National Library.24 Arved Ashby points out a link between it and
Schoenberg’s announcement, and reveals the existence of four pages of detailed notes in Berg’s
hand that relate closely to the content of the typescript.25 Whereas Ashby speculates that KzT is a
transcript of the 17 February 1923 meeting,26 Heneghan proposes that the typescript “may represent the ‘transcript’ [Abschrift] to which Webern referred in his letter to Jalowetz,” primarily
because KzT deals with compositional techniques that are characteristic of Schoenberg’s early
twelve-tone music, and it discusses the Prelude of Op. 25 as his most recent piece.27
23
Brian R. Simms, The Atonal Music of Arnold Schoenberg, 1908–1923 (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2000),
9. In the endnotes associated with this sentence, Simms writes: “Schoenberg spoke to his students about twelve-tone
composition on several occasions in the early 1920s. Josef Polnauer recalled one such discussion held in February
1923, and in a draft of a letter to Hauer dated 25 July 1922 Schoenberg mentioned ‘a few lectures given to my students several months ago’ concerning the method” (224, n. 11). See also Simms, “Schoenberg: The Analyst and the
Analyzed,” in The Arnold Schoenberg Companion, ed. Walter B. Bailey (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998),
242–243, and 249, n. 40.
24
Rudolf Stephan, “Ein frühes Dokument zur Entstehung der Zwölftonkomposition,” in Festschrift Arno
Forchert zum 60. Geburtstag am 29. Dezember 1985, ed. Gerhard Allroggen and Detlef Altenburg (Kassel:
Bärenreiter, 1986), 296–302.
25
Arved Mark Ashby, “The Development of Berg’s Twelve-Tone Aesthetic as Seen in the Lyric Suite and Its
Sources” (Ph.D. dissertation, Yale Univ., 1995), 45.
26
Jennifer Shaw and Josef Auner also regard KzT as a transcript of the 17 February 1923 meeting. See Shaw,
“Schoenberg’s Choral Symphony, Die Jakobsleiter, and Other Wartime Fragments” (Ph.D. dissertation, State Univ.
of New York at Stony Brook, 2002), 583–584; and Auner, A Schoenberg Reader, 173–174.
27
Heneghan, “Tradition as Muse,” 157, 159–161.
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Adopting Heneghan’s proposal, in this essay I assume that KzT is a transcript of the early
lecture series.28 I will refer to this event as the “lecture series” to differentiate it from the
“announcement meeting” that has been presumed to have taken place between February and May
of 1923 (i.e., in the spring, by Deutsch and Rufer; in February, by Polnauer; in April, by
Heneghan; and in May, by Brezinka). Although the 1923 meeting might also have featured a
lecture format, I will maintain the term “meeting” as it has been customarily identified in this
way.
Although the above studies agree on 1923 as the year of the meeting, a recollection by
Felix Greissle, which appears in a 2005 article by Therese Muxeneder, raises the possibility that
Schoenberg’s announcement occurred before that year.29 According to Deborah H. How, who
has studied documents in the Felix Greissle Collection of the Arnold Schönberg Center, this recollection comes from a lecture Greissle delivered in July 1979.30 She translates:
Now I come to a point, which is still very unclear, in as much as Schoenberg later
summoned all his pupils together and reported how twelve-tone composition was made
and explained—that is the main point, and it has been fixed for the year 1923; I believe it
was earlier. The misunderstanding comes from the fact that there were several such
meetings. I believe the first was in 1922, soon after we came back to Mödling.
I only want to speak about the first of these pupil meetings and how it was a big surprise for all of us, including myself. I noted who was present, and it is an incomplete list.
He had invited more people than ever before. At this memorable meeting were present:
Alban Berg, Anton Webern, Erwin Stein, Egon Wellesz, Hanns Eisler, Karl Rankl,
(Josef) Rufer, Erwin Ratz, (Eduard) Steuermann, Schoenberg’s daughter Gertrud,
(Ot[h]mar) Steinbauer, ( ) Trauneck—that is all I remember definitely, but it is possible
that there were still other people there.31
28
How also suggests that “KzT appears to be a partial transcript of an early 1922 Schoenberg lecture or lectures,”
as the typescript is a fragment. See How, “Arnold Schoenberg’s Prelude,” 149, 173–174.
29
Therese Muxeneder, “Arnold Schönbergs Verkündung der Zwölftonmethode: Daten Dokumente, Berichte,
Anekdoten,” in Schachzüge: Arnold Schönbergs Dodekaphonie und Spiele-Konstruktionen, Bericht zum Symposium
3.–5. Juni 2004, ed. Christian Meyer, Journal of the Arnold Schönberg Center 7 (2005), 306–307.
30
How, “Arnold Schoenberg’s Prelude,” 61. I would like to thank Dr. How for showing me a copy of Felix
Greissle’s manuscripts, discussed in her dissertation.
31
Felix Greissle, “Zwei Vorträge: I. Die Anfänge der Komposition mit zwölf Tönen,” typescript of lectures at
the Schönberg-Haus in Mödling, July 1979, in the ASC’s Felix Greissle Satellite Collection (G8); trans. in How,
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Note that Greissle believes that “the misunderstanding comes from the fact that there were
several such meetings,” and that the first one was held in 1922, soon after Schoenberg returned
to Mödling. Regarding the date of the meeting, in a 1965 interview with Hans Keller, Greissle
had already stated that “[a]bout 1925, [Schoenberg] all of a sudden called all of his students and
friends together, you see, and we had a meeting at which there were present Alban Berg, Anton
Webern, Egon Wellesz, Steuermann, Erwin Stein, and many others.”32 However, when Clara
Steuermann—wife of Eduard Steuermann—asked Greissle about the date in October 1975, he
changed the year, as shown in letters recently uncovered by How.33 In Clara’s letter to Greissle,
she explained that she had raised the question because “1923 is the year of the piano pieces and
the Serenade, but I seem to remember Edward saying that the official statement was earlier.”34 In
reply, Greissle answered that the announcement took place in “February (or March) 1922.”35
This is consistent with Greissle (1979), which states that the first announcement meeting
occurred earlier than 1923.36
Greissle (1979) also recalls the presence of Stein at the first meeting—“despite Stein’s
statement to Rufer to the contrary,” as How points out.37 How speculates that “[t]he only possible
solution to this conundrum is that there was more than one announcement,” and further states that
“Arnold Schoenberg’s Prelude,” 61–62. The original German text appears in Muxeneder, “Arnold Schönbergs
Verkündung der Zwölftonmethode,” 306–307.
32
Smith’s transcription of the interview (Schoenberg and His Circle, 198) starts in the middle of the sentence
(“he all of a sudden . . .”), leaving out the opening words, “About 1925.”
33
How found these letters in the ASC’s Felix Greissle Satellite Collection (G8); see How, “Arnold Schoenberg’s
Prelude,” 58–61.
34
Letter from Clara Steuermann to Felix Greissle, dated 14 October 1975; original in the ASC’s Felix Greissle
Satellite Collection (G8); quoted from How, “Arnold Schoenberg’s Prelude,” 59.
35
Letter from Felix Greissle to Clara Steuermann, dated 20 October 1975; original in the ASC’s Felix Greissle
Satellite Collection (G8); quoted from How, “Arnold Schoenberg’s Prelude,” 60.
36
How, “Arnold Schoenberg’s Prelude,” 61. How suggests that “perhaps Clara Steuermann’s letter inspired
Greissle to delve into his past and assemble a timeline of events surrounding the announcement.”
37
How, “Arnold Schoenberg’s Prelude,” 52.
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“[e]nough evidence exists to establish that there was . . . one in 1922 and one or two in 1923;
although the exact dates have yet to be pinpointed.”38 After a detailed study of various source
documents and compositions, How proposes that Schoenberg revealed his secret to Stein in the
fall of 1921,39 announced a summary version of his new discovery to his students in early 1922,40
and explained about the twelve-tone method in a public announcement in 1923.41 Here, she
interprets the lecture series described in Webern’s letter to Jalowetz as Schoenberg’s first
announcement in early 1922, primarily based on Greissle’s revised dating,42 and suggests that
KzT is a partial transcript of this occasion.43
Although recent studies assert that there was at least one gathering before 1923, in the
form of a private lecture series or an announcement, it is still not known which occasion(s)
Schoenberg and his students were describing in their recollections. Did Schoenberg (1936)
depict the meeting of 1923, as he claimed? How about the recollections of his students, as per
Figure 2a? What if some of these, believed to be describing the 1923 meeting, were referring
instead to the earlier gathering? Moreover, previous discussions about the unreliability of
Polnauer’s dating were based on Stein’s absence from Vienna in early 1923. If the announcement meeting occurred before 1923 (as Greissle believed), Polnauer’s dating must be
reconsidered.
In the following sections of this essay, I will investigate each recollection to see if there is
evidence of confusion that might have caused an incorrect dating of the announcement meeting.
38
39
40
41
42
43
How, “Arnold Schoenberg’s Prelude,” 53, 63–64.
How, “Arnold Schoenberg’s Prelude,” 123–124.
How, “Arnold Schoenberg’s Prelude,” 222.
How, “Arnold Schoenberg’s Prelude,” 270, n. 59.
How, “Arnold Schoenberg’s Prelude,” 53, 61–64.
How, “Arnold Schoenberg’s Prelude,” 149.
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My strategies for the investigation are as follows. First, I will compare each recollection with
Webern’s description of the early lecture series, to discover if there are similarities between
them. If so, it would suggest that the recollection also illustrates a scene from the early lecture
series. Second, I will search for clues in the recollections (such as names of people or works) that
can help identify the date. For example, if someone remembers the name of a book associated
with the meeting, the event must have taken place after its publication (unless, of course, the
association is incorrect). Third, I will assemble background (biographical) information about the
person who made the recollection. As we will see, some students who identified 1923 as the date
of the announcement could not, in fact, have attended the meeting if it took place at that time.
These three strategies will be combined to answer the following questions: (1) Is Greissle’s
revised dating reliable? (2) Did Schoenberg and his students recall the early lecture series as a
private gathering before a formal announcement, or as the formal announcement itself? (3) If
Polnauer’s dating is unreliable, regardless of Stein’s absence, what was the source of his
February 1923 dating? And above all, (4) when did Schoenberg disclose his new method to his
students for the first time?
“NOT TO BE SEEN AS A PLAGIARIST OF HAUER”
In order to investigate the reminiscences made by Schoenberg and his students, the first
step is to compare them to Webern’s description of the early lecture series, cited in the previous
section. A brief comparison shows that the outline of Schoenberg’s recollections is strikingly
similar to Webern’s. According to Webern, Schoenberg wrote piano pieces employing his new
compositional technique in the summer of 1921, in Traunkirchen. After returning to Mödling,
Schoenberg realized that Hauer had also used a similar technique in his Präludium für Celesta,
published in the November 1921 issue of Melos. To avoid being seen as a plagiarist of Hauer,
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Schoenberg gathered all of his students at his house, and explained about the new technique in a
series of lectures.
Schoenberg’s anxiety over being seen as “a plagiarist (or imitator) of Hauer” is consistently expressed in his recollections of why he decided to disclose the new method, as shown in
the fourth column of Figure 1. However, Schoenberg’s memory varies with regard to which facet
of Hauer’s accomplishment he had become aware of: his writing, theory, music, or compositional procedures. Thus, it will help to surmise which of Hauer’s works Schoenberg was indicating in a given recollection, and when Schoenberg became aware of that work.
The most specific reference is to one of Hauer’s writings. Schoenberg (1936) recalled
that “I was afraid to be taken as an imitator of Hauer, who, at this time, published his Vom Melos
zur Pauke.” According to Leonard Stein, Schoenberg must have been mistaken in his reference:
he “most likely means Vom Wesen des Musikalischen, which was published in 1923, rather than
Vom Melos zur Pauke, which appeared in 1925—and was dedicated to Schoenberg.”44 Actually,
Vom Wesen was originally published in 1920.45 Schoenberg read it with great interest in the summer of 1921, when he was about to complete the revision of his Harmonielehre, as shown in the
annotated copy of Hauer’s treatise found in Schoenberg’s library.46 A new version of Vom Wesen
was published in 1923, but there are no major changes from the original version.47 Perhaps the
most noticeable change is not in content but rather in the subtitle added to the 1923 version: Ein
Lehrbuch der atonalen Musik (A Textbook of Atonal Music).48
44
Schoenberg, Style and Idea, 523, n. 1 (under the heading “Schoenberg’s Tone-Rows”).
Josef Matthias Hauer, Vom Wesen des Musikalischen (Leipzig and Vienna: Waldheim-Eberle, 1920).
46
Simms, “Who First Composed Twelve-Tone Music?,” 121. See also Schoenberg, “Priority,” 239.
47
Josef Matthias Hauer, Vom Wesen des Musikalischen: Ein Lehrbuch der Atonalen Musik (Berlin-Lichterfeld:
Schlesinger, 1923).
48
John Covach discusses a version of Vom Wesen des Musikalischen with a different subtitle—Ein Lehrbuch der
Zwölftöne-musik (A Textbook of Twelve-Tone Music), which was issued by the same publisher (Berlin-Lichterfeld:
45
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Like Vom Wesen, Hauer’s Deutung des Melos, published in 1923, has also been suggested as a candidate for the work that motivated Schoenberg’s 1923 meeting.49 Yet, this is not a
totally new writing either, because several chapters of the book had already appeared as journal
articles between 1920 and 1922.50 Although Hauer’s article “Musikalisches Denken” (“Musical
Thought”) was published in March 1923, it deals with issues that had already been discussed in
Vom Wesen.51 Accordingly, it is difficult to identify a work by Hauer that was published in the
spring of 1923 and would qualify as a motivation for Schoenberg’s announcement meeting.
In a different recollection, Schoenberg (1950b) refers to Hauer’s theory (rather than to a
specific writing per se): sometime after he returned from Traunkirchen, “I heard rumors about
Josef Hauer’s Tropenlehre [trope theory], which would have made me appear as a plagiarist of
Hauer.” In Vom Wesen, Hauer employed the term Baustein to indicate a building block, a unit of
a composition.52 A Baustein, which consists of twelve different tones, is divided into two groups
of six tones each, called Tropen (tropes). In a 1924 article, Hauer explains that he had discovered
forty-four kinds of tropes by Christmas 1921.53 Although Hauer first made published reference to
Schlesinger)—in his Ph.D. dissertation, “The Music and Theories of Josef Matthias Hauer” (Univ. of Michigan,
1990), 25. Although I haven’t had the opportunity to examine this version, the excerpts cited in Covach’s study, and
the book’s page count and number of illustrations as described in the Library of Congress catalog, suggest that this
version is the same as Ein Lehrbuch der atonalen Musik, except for the subtitle. According to advertisements
appearing in Melos 4/1 (Aug. 1924) and 4/12 (Sept. 1925), the 1923 version was first published with the subtitle Ein
Lehrbuch der atonalen Musik, and this subtitle was maintained until at least September 1925. It is likely that the
publisher replaced only the title page, to reflect the new subtitle, sometime after 1925.
49
Josef Matthias Hauer, Deutung des Melos (Leipzig, Vienna, and Zürich: E. P. Tal & Co. Verlag, 1923); see
Shreffler, “‘Mein Weg geht jetzt vorüber,’” 284–286, n. 20.
50
These articles are: “Musikalische Bildung,” Melos 1/20 (1920): 458–459; “Deutung des Melos,” Melos 2/4
(1921): 72–73; “Melodie oder Geräusch?” Melos 2/5–6 (1921): 94–97; “Zwei Kapitel zur Lehre von der Musik,”
Der Merker 13/1–2 (1922): 12–18; and “Instinkt und Deutung,” Musikblätter des Anbruch 4/15–16 (1922): 229–
231.
51
Josef Matthias Hauer, “Musikalisches Denken,” Musikblätter des Anbruch 5/3 (1923): 79–80. For example, he
discusses melodic possibilities of twelve tones.
52
Josef Matthias Hauer, Vom Wesen des Musikalischen (Leipzig and Vienna: Waldheim-Eberle, 1920), 54
and 56.
53
Josef Matthias Hauer, “Die Tropen,” Musikblätter des Anbruch 6/1 (1924), 20.
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the term “trope” in his essay “Sphärenmusik,” in June 1922, his use of the term had already been
reported by Martha Marton in an article appearing in Musikblätter des Anbruch three months
earlier:
Hauer operates with the twelve tones of our tone system, which involve 500 million possibilities of combination. These possibilities are divided into groups (“tropes,” as Hauer
calls them) by numbers, which are found from cosmic relations. These tropes always
contain twelve fundamental tones and melody [Melodik] like rhythm [Rhythmik] results
from the latent forces of interval. “Not only the essence of the tone color, but also that of
the rhythm lies in the interval.” (Hauer: Vom Wesen des Musikalischen.)54
This commentary implies that, by March 1922, Hauer’s theory of tropes was no longer simply a
rumor.
It is not known whether Schoenberg was aware of the term “trope” in early 1922,
because KzT (a transcript of the early lecture series) does not include his reference to Hauer’s
“tropes,” although it employs “Baustein.”55 However, the absence of the term “trope” in KzT
does not necessary mean that Schoenberg had not yet heard rumors about the theory at that time.
He might have avoided employing the term simply because he did not have enough knowledge
about the theory. On the other hand, the trope theory must have been beyond a rumor for
Schoenberg by 1923, because he had already read Hauer’s essay “Sphärenmusik” in July 1922,
which included “trope.”
Hauer’s music might also have motivated Schoenberg’s meeting. In Schoenberg (1940),
he notes that “I had become aware that Hauer had also written twelve-tone music.” Although he
54
Martha Marton, “Joseph Hauer,” Musikblätter des Anbruch 4/5–6 (1922): 84. Hereafter, all translations are
mine unless otherwise indicated. “Hauer operiert mit den zwölf Tönen unseres Tonsystems, welche 500 Millionen
Möglichkeiten der Kombination bedeuten. Diese Möglichkeiten werden durch Zahlen, die aus kosmischen Zusammenhängen gefunden sind, in Gruppen (“Tropen,” wie sie Hauer nennt) geteilt. Diese Tropen enthalten immer die
zwölf Grundtöne und Melodik wie Rhythmik ergeben sich aus den latenten Kräften des Intervalls. ‘Im Intervall liegt
nicht nur der Kern der Klangfarbe, sondern auch der des Rhythmus.’ (Hauer: Vom Wesen des Musikalischen.)”
55
For Schoenberg’s reference to “Baustein” in the typescript, see Stephan, “Ein frühes Dokument zur
Entstehung der Zwölftonkomposition,” 302.
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did not specify a piece, Hauer’s Präludium für Celesta (dated September 1921) is a good candidate because Schoenberg left his analytical marks and notes on his copy of the music. He tried to
divide the composition into building blocks, and at the end of score he wrote: “this is not built
from ‘tropes,’ so it is not a good atonal composition.” 56 This comment must have been inspired
by the last phrase of Hauer’s “Sphärenmusik,” in which he asserted that “[a] good atonal composition is . . . built upon tropes.” Thus, it is very likely that Schoenberg studied the Präludium für
Celesta after reading Hauer’s article in the summer of 1922.57 However, this was not the first
time that he saw the score. As Webern observed, Schoenberg looked at the Präludium between 1
November 1921 and 7 January 1922, and then disclosed his secret in a series of lectures. If
Schoenberg (1940) was referring to the Präludium when he cited Hauer’s “twelve-tone music,”
the situation described here is very similar to the one described by Webern.
Lastly, and most generally, Schoenberg might have felt anxiety over Hauer’s compositional procedures. According to Schoenberg (1950a), he found out that “Hauer had tried similar
procedures.” By this, Schoenberg might have meant the procedures employed in the Präludium
für Celesta, as this was the first piece of Hauer’s that Schoenberg saw after the summer of 1921.
Perhaps he found in the music some compositional traits that he thought were similar to his own.
At the same time, it should be noted that the Präludium is not built from tropes, as Schoenberg
indicated in his score annotation. Instead, Hauer employs ten-note (i.e., ten pitch-class) building
blocks as well as twelve-note ones in this piece; and, according to John Covach, the use of
building blocks of various sizes was also characteristic of his earlier Nomos, Op. 19 (dated
August 1919).58 Nomos had been performed in May 1920, in a concert organized by the Verein
56
57
58
Simms, “Who First Composed Twelve-Tone Music?,” 120.
Simms, “Who First Composed Twelve-Tone Music?,” 120.
Covach, “The Music and Theories of Josef Matthias Hauer,” 152, n. 23. Covach finds the dating of the
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für musikalische Privataufführungen (Society for Private Musical Performances), at which
Schoenberg was probably present.59
If, then, the compositional procedures of the Präludium were not really new, what aspect
of the piece motivated Schoenberg to reveal his secret in the early lecture series?60 Perhaps, when
Schoenberg heard Nomos in 1920, he had not wholly recognized Hauer as his strong rival, due to
lack of sufficient knowledge about his theory. Schoenberg’s attitude must have changed significantly after reading Hauer’s Vom Wesen in the summer of 1921, as may be seen from a note he
added to a passage in his copy of Hauer’s treatise: “[this is] already stated in my Harmonielehre
of 1911.”61 This annotation indicates that Schoenberg became annoyed by Hauer’s work because
of its closeness to his own theory. (From the viewpoint of Schoenberg, Hauer must have been a
plagiarist of him, not the other way around.) After reading Hauer’s writing and hearing rumors
about his new idea, Schoenberg’s anxiety seems to have increased. When he saw the Präludium
für Celesta, he was conscious enough to find in its compositional procedures something similar
to his own. As Webern wrote to Jalowetz: “In this piece—Präludium für Celesta—Schoenberg
thought that he saw the beginnings of something similar to what he lately had put to use, in the
piano pieces that he wrote in 1921 during the summer in Traunkirchen.” Schoenberg probably
felt that his originality was jeopardized, not only because he found similar procedures in Hauer’s
Präludium für Celesta (September 1921) problematic because the Nomos was composed two years earlier. With
regard to Hauer’s inconsistent use of building blocks, How points out that “Hauer, at the time he composed the
Präludium für Celesta, had not yet developed his trope theories” (“Arnold Schoenberg’s Prelude,” 147).
59
Simms, “Who First Composed Twelve-Tone Music?” 118–120.
60
Regarding this problem, How discusses Hauer’s use of a three-voice texture in the opening of the Präludium
für Celesta, and suggests that “Hauer’s twelve-tone law or building-block technique itself was not the trigger, but
the application of that technique was.” See How, “Arnold Schoenberg’s Prelude from the Suite for Piano,” 128–138.
61
Vom Wesen is the earliest work among the collection of Hauer’s books in Schoenberg’s library. See Kathryn
P. Glennan, Jerry L. McBride, and R. Wayne Shoaf, Arnold Schoenberg Institute Archives: Preliminary Catalog
(Los Angeles: Arnold Schoenberg Institute, 1986), vol. 2, 91. This suggests that Schoenberg read Hauer’s writing
for the first time in the summer of 1921. Regarding the annotation, see Simms, “Who First Composed Twelve-Tone
Music?,” 121.
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music, but also because he had already learned from the Vom Wesen that Hauer’s justification for
the procedures was similar.
Accordingly, Schoenberg’s announcement seems to have been motivated not by a single
composition or article, but by various factors combined: reading Hauer’s writings, hearing
rumors about his theory, seeing his music, and studying his procedures. This is probably why his
memory about the motivation for the meeting varies in its details. These factors—the lack of an
obvious candidate for Hauer’s writing in 1923, Webern’s indication of the Präludium für
Celesta, and the existence of the report on Hauer’s trope theory in early 1922—suggest that
Schoenberg’s anxiety over being viewed as a plagiarist is more likely to have been associated
with the early lecture series, rather than the 1923 meeting.
WEBERN’S REACTION TO SCHOENBERG’S NEW METHOD
In his various recollections, Schoenberg named only three people: Erwin Stein, Josef
Matthias Hauer, and Anton Webern. After writing his first twelve-tone music in the summer of
1921, Schoenberg told his secret to Stein; then, after realizing that Hauer was attempting something similar, Schoenberg disclosed the secret to his students, among whom was Webern.
Schoenberg (1940) describes Webern’s reaction to the announcement as follows: “Curiously
when I had shown the four basic forms, Webern confessed that he had written also something in
twelve tones (probably suggested by the Scherzo of my symphony of 1915), and he said: ‘I never
knew what to do after the twelve tones’ meaning that the three inversions now could follow and
the transpositions.”
Greissle (1965) also describes Webern’s reaction at the meeting, but his recollection is
slightly different from Schoenberg’s:
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[T]here was one person who resisted—who resisted more by being silent and not saying
anything, and that was Anton Webern. He was the one who resisted most. At one point,
when Schoenberg said, “There I used the row transposition and transposed it into the tritone,” so Webern said, “Why?” Schoenberg looked at him and said, “I don’t know,” and
then Webern burst out, “Ah, ah!,” because Webern was waiting for some intuitive sign in
the whole matter and this was it, you see.62
Eight years later, Greissle (1973) again described the scenario: “We were in part puzzled and
part surprised. . . . And there were degrees of acceptance, and there was one who couldn’t accept
it so easily. Guess who? . . . Webern had a hard time—terribly hard time.”63 Both Greissle and
Schoenberg remembered that Webern was silent until Schoenberg introduced the concept of row
transformation, and after hearing the explanation, Webern made a comment about the unexpected solution to the problem. Because both recollections illustrate Webern’s response in
compatible ways, it is likely that they are portraying the same event.
Steuermann (1959) also describes Webern’s reaction: he “said to me on our way home:
‘That’s it! I always had the feeling that when I introduced the twelfth tone, the piece had
ended.’”64 This comment not only suggests the same point as “I never knew what to do after the
twelve tones,” remembered by Schoenberg (1940), but also depicts the thrill Webern expressed
in his letter to Jalowetz: “almost everything that has occupied me for about ten years is being
discussed. It is almost too exciting.” Webern must have been concerned about the use of twelve
tones for a long time, and was enthralled to hear Schoenberg’s solution.
To summarize, Greissle (1965 and 1973), Steuermann (1959), and Schoenberg (1940) all
illustrate Webern’s reaction after hearing Schoenberg’s explanation of his new method for the
62
Interview by Hans Keller (BBC, 4 November 1965), in Smith, Schoenberg and His Circle, 198.
Smith, Schoenberg and His Circle, 206–207.
64
Edward Steuermann, “The Possibilities and Impossibilities of Serial Composition: An Unscientific Inquiry,” in
The Not Quite Innocent Bystander: Writings of Edward Steuermann, ed. Clara Steuermann, David Porter, and
Gunther Schuller (Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1989), 59.
63
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first time. This suggests the possibility that they may have been describing the same scene. And
because Webern’s excitement was expressed in his letter to Jalowetz, the scene must have
occurred on the first day of the early lectures series.
Here, it should be noted that Steuermann’s recollection also includes a detailed analysis
of Schoenberg’s Prelude, which does not appear in KzT, nor on the four pages of handwritten
notes by Berg.65 The inclusion of the analysis may imply that Steuermann was illustrating a later
meeting, at which Schoenberg addressed the piece in detail. However, the inclusion does not
necessarily mean that Steuermann was absent from the first day of the early lecture series; he
could have attended later meetings in addition to that of the first day, and his memory of the
events might have been confused.
WHERE WERE SCHOENBERG’S STUDENTS BETWEEN 1921 AND 1923?
The preceding investigation suggests that some recollections may include descriptions of
the first day of the early lecture series, even if different dates were identified. Our next step is to
search for the whereabouts of Schoenberg’s students—those listed in Figures 2a and 2b—
between 1921 and 1923. This is necessary because, if a student was absent from the Vienna area
during a certain period of time, he could not have attended meetings during that time in Mödling,
a southern suburb of Vienna. Accordingly, we can determine more specifically to which event
reference was being made.
1. Max Deutch. When Schoenberg stayed in Zandvoort, Holland, to teach analysis
courses and concertize in Amsterdam between October 1920 and March 1921, Deutsch was one
65
This problem is also discussed in How, “Arnold Schoenberg’s Prelude,” 180–181.
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of the assistants who accompanied him.66 After returning to Vienna, Deutsch began to look for a
position.67 By the end of 1922, he moved to Berlin to become a conductor of the Blüthner orchestra.68 There, he met Georg Wilhelm Pabst, who was about to establish his career as a director
of German cinema.69 One day Pabst asked Deutsch to compose music for his upcoming film, Der
Schatz (The Treasure). According to Deutsch’s recollection, Pabst said to him:
“Come every day at 6:30 in the morning at Tempelhof, where the studios are. You will
have a piano there: during the filming of the scenes, you will improvise music.” Which I
did.
Every day, someone came to look for me. Sometimes, it was a carriage drawn by two
horses, sometimes by four horses, another time it could be a real car. This lasted like two
months. During the two months, I improvised music which later became a symphony.70
The premiere of Der Schatz took place in Dresden, on 26 February 1923, at which Deustch
conducted the music.71 After the completion of this music, he worked for Max Reinhardt,
director of a theater in Berlin.72 It was also during 1923 that Deutsch composed the opera Schach
66
Paul Op de Coul and Rutger Schoute, “Schoenberg in the Netherlands,” Journal of Arnold Schoenberg Institute, 6/2 (1982), 169.
67
Webern wrote to Jalowetz, on 22 June 1921, that Deutsch was interested in the position of second Kapellmeister in Aussig. See Anton Webern: Briefe an Heinrich Jalowetz, 484.
68
Alain Jomy and Dominique Rabourdin, “Entretien avec Max Deutsch,” Cinéma 290 (1983), 26. Although
Deutsch did not specify the year, he must have moved to Berlin by the end of 1922 because he stated in the same
interview that he worked for about two months for the music of Der Schatz. As this film premiered on 26 February
1923, he must have met Pabst before January 1923.
69
Jomy and Rabourdin, “Entretien avec Max Deutsch,” 26.
70
“‘Tu viens tous les jours à six heures et demie du matin à Tempelhof, où sont les studios et tu auras un piano:
pendant le tournage des scènes, tu vas improviser une musique.’ Ce que je fis. / Tous les jours, on venait me
chercher. Parfois, c'était un carrosse tiré par deux chevaux, parfois par quatre chevaux, une autre fois ça pouvait être
une vraie automobile. Ça a duré comme ça deux mois. Pendant ces deux mois, j'ai improvisé une musique qui, plus
tard, est devenue une symphonie” (Jomy and Rabourdin, “Entretien avec Max Deutsch,” 26–27).
71
The date of the premiere is found in the program notes on Der Schatz, presented at the Thirty-Fourth Karlovy
Vary International Film Festival (2–11 July 1999), http://www.kinema.uwaterloo.ca/article.php?id=309&feature.
For a discussion of the film and the music, see Volker Scherliess, “Der Schatz: Film von Georg Wilhelm Pabst,
Musik von Max Deutsch (1923),” Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 145/11 (1984): 8–13. This premiere is also discussed in
Muxeneder, “Arnold Schönbergs Verkündung der Zwölftonmethode,” 310, n. 48.
72
Jomy and Rabourdin, “Entretien avec Max Deutsch,” 27.
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(Chess), Op. 1, and premiered it in Berlin and Vienna.73 He moved to Switzerland in 1924, and
then settled in Paris, where he founded the theater Der Jüdische Spiegel (The Jewish Mirror) in
1925.74
In addition to his activities as conductor and film composer, Deutsch founded the Gesellschaft für moderne Musikaufführungen (Society for Modern Music Performances) in Berlin. One
of its concerts took place on 14 April 1923, and composer Alexander Zemlinsky (who happened
to be in Berlin at the time) attended the event.75 As Deutsch lived in Berlin in 1923, he must have
misremembered the year when, fifty years later, he said to Smith: “So, . . . in 1923, when
[Schoenberg] came back from Amsterdam, he called us for [an] appointment for a meeting in
Mödling.”76 Schoenberg came back from Amsterdam at the end of March 1921, and the meeting
must have occurred after this time but before Deutsch’s departure for Berlin in 1922.
2. Josef Rufer. Rufer became Schoenberg’s private student in February 1919 and studied
music theory under his guidance until 1922.77 It is well known that Schoenberg told Rufer,
“[t]oday I have discovered something which will assure the supremacy of German music for the
next hundred years.” This was at the end of July 1921, during a walk in Traunkirchen, around the
73
Jomy and Rabourdin, “Entretien avec Max Deutsch,” 28. Although I was unable to identify the performance
dates of his opera, it is not likely that Deutsch attended the announcement meeting in 1923 when he came back to
Vienna, as there is no evidence that Deutsch communicated with Schoenberg in 1923.
74
Scherliess, “Der Schatz,” 9–10.
75
Zemlinsky wrote a postcard to Schoenberg, stating that it was a fine concert, featuring works by Schoenberg,
Stravinsky, and Reger. The postcard, stamped 15 April 1923, includes the greetings from Maria and Josef Rufer. It
is at the Library of Congress (hereafter LC), with a copy also at the ASC, Letter ID 18760; scan available at
http://www.schoenberg.at/scans/DVD119/18760-1.jpg. See a transcription in Zemlinskys Briefwechsel mit Schönberg, Webern, Berg und Schreker, ed. Horst Weber, Briefwechsel der Wiener Schule, vol. 1 (Mainz: Schott, 1995),
248.
76
Smith, Schoenberg and His Circle, 202. In Deutsch (1970), he identified the time of the meeting as “spring
1923.”
77
Peter Gradenwitz, Arnold Schönberg und seine Meisterschüler: Berlin 1925–1933 (Vienna: Paul Zsolnay
Verlag, 1998), 40. Also see Weber, Zemlinskys Briefwechsel, 377.
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time that Schoenberg composed the Prelude of his Piano Suite, using his new method.78 Regarding Rufer’s activity after 1922, he describes it as follows, on a page from a photo album titled
“Dem Lehrer Arnold Schönberg,” dedicated to the master on the occasion of his fiftieth birthday:
“1923–24 I directed a cycle of ten concerts of new music in Hamburg, following the model of
the Verein für musikalische Privataufführungen in Vienna.”79 This cycle started in the fall of
1923. Where, then, was Rufer in the spring of 1923?
His letter to Schoenberg, dated 11 April 1923, shows that he was in Berlin at that time, to
work for the Gesellschaft für moderne Musikaufführungen with Max Deutsch and Othmar Steinbauer.80 In the letter, Rufer called the Society for Modern Musical Performances “the Berlin
Verein,” and explained that “during my absence from Vienna, there were—so far only—two
78
Josef Rufer, The Works of Arnold Schoenberg: A Catalogue of his Compositions, Writings, and Paintings,
trans. Dika Newlin (London: Faber and Faber, 1962), 45. The remark is expressed slightly differently in Hans Heinz
Stuckenschmidt, Schoenberg: His Life, World, and Work, trans. Humphrey Searle (New York: Schirmer Books,
1977), 277. Schoenberg’s grandson, E. Randol Schoenberg, has raised a question about the accuracy of Rufer’s
recollection in “The Most Famous Thing He Never Said,” JMI [Jewish Music Institute] International Centre for
Suppressed Music Newsletter 4 (Nov. 2002), <http://www.jmi.org.uk/suppressedmusic/newsletter/ifsm_news4.
html#7>. He points out that Rufer’s remark might suggest that “Schoenberg was a fanatical German nationalist,”
whereas such an implication “is exactly the opposite of what [he] expressed” in a letter to Alma Mahler of 26 July
1921—one that includes “a statement quite similar to the one Rufer later recalled.” In this letter, Schoenberg
expressed his excitement after discovering “something completely new,” remarking that “[t]he German Aryans who
persecuted me in Mattsee will have this new thing (especially this one) to thank for the fact that even they will still
be respected abroad for 100 years, because they belong to the very state that has just secured for itself hegemony in
the field of music!” Schoenberg arrived at Mattsee, a lakeside summer resort near Salzburg, at the beginning of June
1921. Although the vacation went well for the first few weeks, soon anti-Semitic demonstrations broke out in the
town, and all Jews were asked to leave immediately. With the help of Rufer, Schoenberg found a house in Traunkirchen, and moved there on 14 July. (See Schoenberg’s postcard to Berg on 16 July 1921, in The Berg–Schoenberg
Correspondence, 308.) Less than two weeks after his departure from Mattsee, Schoenberg wrote the above letter to
Alma Mahler, commenting on his recent finding, with an irony that Rufer’s recollection fails to convey. At the same
time, this letter confirms that his memory on the dating (i.e., the end of July 1921) is correct. For further discussion
on Rufer’s remark, see How, “Arnold Schoenberg’s Prelude from the Suite for Piano,” 15–34.
79
“1923–24 leitete ich einen Zyklus von 10 Konzerten neuer Musik in Hamburg nach dem Vorbild des ‘Vereins
f[ür] musik[alische] Privataufführungen’ in Wien.” A reproduction of Rufer’s leaf, as well as the transcription of his
description in the photo album, appears in Arnold Schönberg 1874–1951: Lebensgeschichte in Begegnungen, ed.
Nuria Nono-Schoenberg (Klagenfurt: Ritter, 1992), 232. Regarding this album, see Jerry McBride, “Dem Lehrer
Arnold Schönberg,” Journal of the Arnold Schoenberg Institute 8/1 (1984): 31–38.
80
See Rufer’s letter to Schoenberg on 11 April 1923, sent from Berlin, in LC (ASC ID 21549, scan available at
http://www.schoenberg.at/scans/DVD091/21549-1.jpg).
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concerts, of which the first one was supposed to have been very good and the second one bad. In
April, there will be only two concerts again: on 14 and 27, and a concert every week in May.”81
In a letter dated 26 April 1923, Rufer explains to Schoenberg that he had not been treated
well in the Berlin Verein: “I have been treated here in an unbelievable way: since December, I
was urged to stay here and work for the Verein; I finally decided to do so, subject to your
approval which I had, and also [because of] your sympathy for the Verein.”82 Rufer had worked
for the Berlin Verein since December 1922, which is consistent with the information provided in
the previous letter; he must have prepared for the concert series in Berlin for several months, and
the first two concerts took place before 11 April 1923. Steinbauer writes to Schoenberg from
Berlin on 14 May 1923 that “Rufer has turned down the offer of the board to serve as ‘Vortragsmeister’ [‘performance director’] in the society.”83 As Steinbauer came back to Vienna later in
that month, and Deutsch had moved to Switzerland by 1924, the Berlin Verein must have ceased
sometime after May 1923.
Rufer’s presence in Berlin is also confirmed by postcards to Schoenberg from Zemlinsky,
on 15 April and 6 June 1923, both of which include Rufer’s signature and his greeting to
Schoenberg.84 Rufer returned to Vienna in the summer of 1923; in early August, he went to
Salzburg to attend the music festival.85 Rufer was in Hamburg by late August, and stayed there
81
“[W]ährend meiner Abwesenheit in Wien waren 2—bisher die einziger—Konzerte[,] das erste soll sehr gut
das zweite schlecht gewesen sein. In April sind wieder nur 2: am 14. und 27., in Mai schon jede Woche eines.”
82
Rufer’s letter to Schoenberg, dated 26 April 1923, in LC (ASC ID 21554, scan available at http://www.
schoenberg.at/scans/DVD091/21554-1.jpg). “Man hat mich hier in einer unglaublicher Weise behandelt: seit
Dezember gedrängt hier zu bleiben und im Verein mitzuarbeiten entschloss ich mich endlich dazu, vorbehaltlich
Ihrer Zustimmung—die holte ich mir und auch Ihr Wohlwollen für den Verein dazu.”
83
Steinbauer’s letter to Schoenberg, dated 14 May 1923, in LC (ASC ID 21802, scan available at http://www.
schoenberg.at/scans/DVD102/21802.jpg). “Rufer hat das Angebot des Vorstandes, sich in der Gesellschaft als
Vortragsmeister zu betätigen abgelehnt.”
84
See Weber, Zemlinskys Briefwechsel, 248 and 249.
85
Rufer’s letters to Schoenberg of 21 June and 27 July 1923, in LC, were sent from Vienna (ASC ID 21557 and
21558, scan available at http://www.schoenberg.at/scans/DVD091/21557.jpg and http://www.schoenberg.at/scans/
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until early 1924 to organize the concert series in that city, with Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt.86
Therefore, Rufer could not have attended Schoenberg’s announcement meeting if it had taken
place in 1923; he was in Berlin in the spring and in Hamburg in the fall. During his short stay in
Vienna in the summer, Schoenberg was in Traunkirchen.
3. Erwin Ratz. It is known that Ratz went to Weimar in 1921, to become a private secretary to Walter Gropius, the director of the Bauhaus, and that he came back to Vienna in the
summer of 1922.87 A recent study also suggests his presence in Weimar in 1923. 88 To find out
further details, we need to consult primary sources. Schoenberg’s forty-seventh birthday celebration took place in Traunkirchen on 13 September 1921, and Ratz was among those who were
present.89 On the same day, the engagement of Felix Greissle to Schoenberg’s daughter Gertrud
(Trudi) was announced; they married on 10 November 1921 in Mödling.90 Ratz was among the
guests invited to the wedding,91 and also among the students who signed a greeting card to Alma
Mahler at Schoenberg’s house on New Year’s Day 1922.92 It is not known if Ratz left for
DVD091/21558.jpg). According to Berg’s letter to his wife of 3 August 1923, Rufer attended the Salzburg music
festival, at which Berg’s String Quartet, Op. 3, was performed (Alban Berg, Letters to His Wife, ed. and trans.
Bernard Grun [New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1971], 326–327, letter no. 337).
86
Rufer’s letter to Schoenberg, dated 9 September 1923, in LC (ASC ID 21552, scan available at http://www.
schoenberg.at/scans/DVD091/21552-1.jpg).
87
Karl Heinz Füssl, “Prof. Erwin Ratz zum 60. Geburtstag,” Österreichische Musikzeitschrift 14/1 (1959), 19;
and Rudolf Stephan, “Erwin Ratz,” Die Musikforschung 27/2 (1974), 151.
88
Johannes Kretz, Erwin Ratz: Leben und Wirken, Studien zur Wiener Schule, vol. 1 (Frankfurt am Main: Peter
Lang, 1996), 38, n. 18.
89
Students’ and friends’ letter to Schoenberg, dated 13 September 1921, in LC (ASC ID 23508, scans available
at http://www.schoenberg.at/scans/DVD_B/32_08_u_03a.jpg and http://www.schoenberg.at/scans/DVD_B/32_08_
u_03b.jpg).
90
Wedding invitation from Schoenberg and Greissle families to Emil Hertzka, in Weiner Stadtbibliothek (ASC,
ID 7060).
91
List of guests at the wedding in Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna (ASC, ID 6334). I thank Christoph
Edtmayr at the ASC for transcribing this letter. As other guests were chosen from among those who lived in Vienna
or nearby—except for Zemlinsky and Jalowetz, who were in Prague—it is inconceivable that Ratz was in Weimar
before the wedding and went back to Vienna just to attend the ceremony.
92
Schoenberg’s letter to Alma Mahler, with the signatures of his family and students, in the Alma MahlerWerfel Collection at the University of Pennsylvania (ASC, ID 6778).
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Weimar after January, but he must have been in Vienna in late April because Schoenberg sent a
letter to Universal Edition in Vienna, on 29 April 1922, asking “[w]ould you please hand over
these notes to Ratz?”93 Then, on 4 July 1922, Ratz wrote from Weimar to Berg, asking him to go
to Alma Mahler and request her to recommend somebody from the Schoenberg circle to work at
the Bauhaus.94 In the summer, he returned to Vienna to work for the Internationale Gesellschaft
für Neue Musik (International Society for Contemporary Music). Ratz also made a vocal score of
Schoenberg’s Erwartung, Op. 17, and sent it to Traunkirchen from Vienna on 14 August 1922.95
Ratz left for Weimar again in the fall of 1922, and sent a postcard to Schoenberg after
hearing Peirrot Lunaire on 27 October 1922, at the Bauhaus.96 Two month later, Ratz sent a
Christmas greeting to Schoenberg from Weimar, noting that “I was hoping to go back to Vienna
for Christmas, but unfortunately, it is impossible.”97 In April 1923, Stefan Wolpe dedicated his
Three Piano Pieces, Op. 5b, to Ratz. Wolpe frequently visited the Bauhaus as early as the fall of
1920, and during the next few years “sat in on lectures, participated in studio activities in the
preliminary course, and attended exhibitions.”98 Wolpe wrote the piano pieces in April 1923 in
Weimar, and dedicated the work to Ratz “aus Anlass frohen Beisammens” (“on the occasion of
93
Letter to Universal Edition, in Wiener Stadtbibliothek (ASC, ID 7070). “Bitte Herrn Ratz gefälligst diese
Noten auszufolgen.”
94
Matthias Henke, “Erwin Ratz, der Lehrer,” in Arnold Schönbergs Wiener Kreis: Bericht zum Symposium 12.–
15. September 1999, ed. Christian Meyer, Journal of the Arnold Schönberg Center 2 (2000), 155, n. 30.
95
Ratz’s letter to Schoenberg, dated 14 August 1922, in LC (ASC ID 15280, scan available at http://www.
schoenberg.at/scans/DVD090/15280-1.jpg).
96
Ratz’s postcard to Schoenberg from Weimar, in LC (ASC ID 15277, scans available at http://www.schoenberg
.at/scans/DVD090/15277-1.jpg and http://www.schoenberg.at/scans/DVD090/15277-2.jpg). Although the postcard
is undated and it has been tentatively classified as among Schoenberg’s correspondence of 1918, it must have been
written immediately after the concert in Weimar on 27 October 1922, in which Pierrot Lunaire was performed. This
is because it includes signatures of the following people: Rudolf Schulz-Dornburg, Karin Dayas, Willy Noack,
Hermann Busch, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Karl Nierendorf, and Ernst Thalmann. The first four people were
the concert’s performers, and Klee taught at the Bauhaus in Weimar, where Kandinsky joined the faculty in 1922.
97
“Ich hoffte zu Weihnachten nach Wien zukommen, es ist leider unmöglich.” Ratz’s letter to Schoenberg, dated
22 December 1922, in LC (ASC ID 15281, scans available at http://www.schoenberg.at/scans/DVD090/15281-1.jpg
and http://www.schoenberg.at/scans/DVD090/15281-2.jpg).
98
Austin E. Clarkson, “Stefan Wolpe in Conversation with Eric Salzman,” Musical Quarterly 83/3 (1999), 379.
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our joyous get-together”).99 This dedication implies Ratz’s presence in Weimar that month, as
they must have been “together” when Wolpe wrote the pieces.100 On 5 June 1923, Ratz attended
a concert in Berlin with Dolly Schlichter, who also came from Weimar and had participated in
Schoenberg’s composition seminar (1918–19) at the Schwarzwald School.101 In July, Stuckenschmidt came to Weimar to prepare the music for the Bauhaus Exhibition to be held in the
summer of 1923, and he met Wolpe through Ratz at that time.102
Although there is no direct evidence indicating Ratz’s whereabouts between Christmas
1922 and April 1923, circumstantial evidence suggests that he stayed in Weimar to assist
Bauhaus director Gropius during that time, which was most eventful for him. In December 1922,
the preparation for the Bauhaus Exhibition began.103 It was the first comprehensive public event
of the school and, according to Oskar Schlemmer (who taught there), it “will decide the fate of
the Bauhaus.”104 Inside the institution, Johannes Itten finally left the school on Easter 1923 after
a long-lasting conflict with Gropius, and László Moholy-Nagy came to fill his position. On 12
February 1923, Schlemmer reported to his friend Otto Meyer that “[t]he Bauhaus with all its
‘affairs’ is a complicated and distressing thing,” and “[a]ll these goings-on and battles have made
me more anxious than ever to return to my own work; many things have built up and are begging
99
At the end of the manuscript of No. 1, Wolpe wrote “22. IV. 1923”; on No. 2, “13. IV. 1923”; and on No. 3,
“Weimar / 15. IV. 1923.” See Stefan Wolpe, Klaviermusik 1920–1929, ed. Thomas Phelps (New York and
Hamburg: Peer Music 1997), 58–60.
100
Ratz had hidden the manuscript in the stovepipe of his father’s bakery in Vienna during the Nazi years
(Wolpe, Klaviermusik 1920–1929, 58).
101
The Berg–Schoenberg Correspondence, 325, n. 3. This concert—featuring Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony, Op. 9, Webern’s Passacaglia, Op. 1, and Berg’s Orchestral Pieces, Op. 6—was organized as a part of
“Austrian Music Week.”
102
Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt, Musik am Bauhaus[: Vortrag, gehalten im Bauhaus-Archiv in Berlin am 11.
Mai 1976], ed. Hans M. Wingler (Berlin: Bauhaus-Archiv, 1978–79), 5.
103
The Letters and Diaries of Oskar Schlemmer, ed. Tut Schlemmer, trans. Krishna Winston (Middletown, CT:
Wesleyan Univ. Press, 1972), 136.
104
The Letters and Diaries of Oskar Schlemmer, 136.
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to be expressed.”105 Under such stressful circumstances, Gropius must have needed Ratz’s assistance with his administrative work more than ever.
Ratz told Smith that the announcement meeting took place in 1923, which he described
as follows: “I was there when [Schoenberg] gave his first lecture on twelve-tone music. He
called his group of students together and said he would like to talk about these new principles”
(Ratz 1973).106 Because Ratz was in Vienna between the fall of 1921 and early 1922, and must
have stayed in Weimar between the fall of 1922 and the summer of 1923, it is unlikely that the
meeting occurred between the fall of 1922 and the summer of 1923.
4. Others. The rest of the students—Polnauer, Greissle, Kolisch, and Steuermann—lived
in Vienna between 1921 and 1923. Rudolf Kolisch and Edward Steuermann were prominent
concert artists: Kolisch as violinist and Steuermann as pianist. They were in Prague when
Schoenberg wrote to Baron Hermann Roner, on 16 February 1923:
When your letter arrived, I was in Copenhagen, where I conducted a concert (Chamber
Symphony etc.). Since then, I glanced at Kolisch only once and didn’t have your letter at
hand at that time. To not postpone the answer to your question any longer, I will send
him the question by mail and ask him to answer immediately. I am sorry, but it just
occurred to me that Kolisch travels to Prague these days (Verein concert).107
Paul von Klenau had invited Schoenberg to conduct the Chamber Symphony, Op. 9, in Copenhagen on 30 January 1923. The preceding letter indicates that Schoenberg “glanced at Kolisch
105
The Letters and Diaries of Oskar Schlemmer, 136–137.
Smith, Schoenberg and His Circle, 208.
107
“[A]ls Ihr Brief ankam, befand ich mich in Kopenhagen, wo ich ein Konzert (Kammersymphonie etc.)
dirigierte. Seither habe ich Kolisch nur einmal flüchtig gesehen und hatte [d]amals Ihren Brief nicht zur Hand. Um
nun die Beantwortung Ihrer Frage nicht noch länger hinauszuschieben, sende ich ihm die Frage per Post und ersuche
ihn Ihnen umgehend zu antworten. Leider fällte mir aber eben ein, dass Kolisch dieser Tage nach Prag reist
(Vereinskonzert).” Schoenberg’s letter to Baron Hermann Roner, dated 16 February 1923, in LC (ASC ID 827, scan
available at http://www.schoenberg.at/scans/DVD023/827.jpg); trans. by the present author.
106
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only once” after the composer came back from Copenhagen, in early February.108 By 16 February, Kolisch had already left for Prague to prepare for the coming concerts organized by the
Verein für musikalische Privataufführungen in Prague, which were scheduled for 20–21 February. As Steuermann took part in the same concerts, it is likely that he left for Prague about the
same time as Kolisch. Their absence from Vienna excludes the possibility that they could have
attended a 17 February 1923 meeting in Mödling (if such a meeting was held).
STEIN AND HIS “NEUE FORMPRINZIPIEN”
There is yet another student who identified 1923 as the year of the announcement meeting: Erwin Stein. In a letter to Rufer of 14 August 1957, Stein affirms that he was absent from
the meeting, but speculates that it took place in the fall of 1923. He asks Rufer:
Were you there when Schoenberg explained for the first time the method to his students?
I must have been in Darmstadt at that time, but Webern, Berg, Polnauer and others were
there, but Polnauer cannot remember the time. I conclude for various reasons that it was
in the autumn of 1923 when Schoenberg returned from Traunkirchen. [. . .] Do you
remember the lecture in Mödling? I would be very grateful for a reply. Rankl was also
there, but he always gives false dates.109
Although Rufer’s reply to this letter has not been found, Heneghan argues that Rufer “evidently
took issue with Stein’s rationale since Stein wrote in the next letter that ‘Schoenberg was in
Traunkirchen in 1923, before [his wife] Mathilde’s death.’”110 She continues that “Stein was correct that Schoenberg was in Traunkirchen until mid-September of 1923 but it is inconceivable
that Schoenberg was concerned with announcing his method on his return to Vienna as Mathilde
was taken to hospital on 20 September and died just a few weeks later on 18 October 1923.”
108
As Schoenberg resumed his composition on 6 February, he must have returned by early February.
Trans. in Heneghan, “Tradition as Muse,” 150–151. According to Heneghan, this letter is catalogued at N.
Mus. Nachl. 58. 333, in the Rufer Collection of the Music Department of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Preußischer
Kulturbesitz, Berlin.
109
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Consequently, Heneghan suggests that “the Stein–Rufer correspondence confirms that there was
a formal announcement in 1923,” and that the meeting “took place during the spring of 1923,
most likely in April when Schoenberg had completed Opp. 23, 24, and 25 but before Stein had
returned to Vienna.”
However, Rufer could not have attended the meeting if it had taken place in April 1923,
as he was away from Vienna at that time (as shown in the previous section). Taking his absence
into consideration, let us reinterpret the Stein–Rufer correspondence. In his letter, Stein’s questions to Rufer were (1) “[w]ere you there when Schoenberg explained for the first time the
method to his students?” and (2) “do you remember the [date of the] lecture in Mödling?” After
Rufer sent his answers to Stein (which are unknown to us), Stein wrote to Rufer in a second
letter, stating that “Schoenberg was in Traunkirchen in the summer of 1923.” Rufer’s answer to
Stein’s first question must have been “yes,” not only because he remembered the meeting, but
also because of his closeness to Schoenberg, described in the episode from 1921 in which
Schoenberg told him about discovering the new method. This episode indicates that Schoenberg
trusted Rufer enough to unveil the secret even before the early lectures were begun, and thus
there was no reason for Rufer not to have been invited to the early lectures, as long as he was in
Vienna. An interpretation of his answer to Stein’s second question is problematic because of
Rufer’s absence from Vienna in the fall of 1923. Rufer seems to have forgotten this absence
when he received the letter from Stein, as Rufer did not deny Stein’s conclusion about the date of
the meeting. Otherwise, Rufer would have written “the meeting did not take place in the fall of
1923, as I was in Hamburg.”
110
This and subsequent quotations in this paragraph are from Heneghan, “Tradition as Muse,” 151–152.
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What, then, was Rufer’s answer to Stein’s second question? If Rufer had agreed that the
meeting had taken place in 1923, after Schoenberg came back from Traunkirchen, it wouldn’t
have been necessary for Stein to assure Rufer that Schoenberg was there in the summer of 1923.
In his reply to Stein, therefore, Rufer must have asked Stein if Schoenberg went to Traunkirchen
in 1923 because Rufer was not sure about the year, but remembered that the meeting took place
after Schoenberg came back. However, Stein’s remark in the second letter (that Schoenberg was
in Traunkirchen in the summer of 1923) does not necessarily indicate that the announcement
meeting took place in 1923. Instead, the description “after Schoenberg came back from Traunkirchen” is significant, as he had also stayed in Traunkirchen during the summers of 1921 and
1922. As it was not possible for Rufer to attend the event if it had taken place in the fall of 1923,
what Rufer really must have meant was that the meeting occurred after the summer of either
1921 or 1922.
This correspondence also provides another important clue concerning the date of Schoenberg’s announcement: Stein must have been in Darmstadt when the first meeting took place. He
conducted Schoenberg’s Pierrot Luniare in Vienna, on 30 October 1922,111 but accidentally fell
and injured his knee in the next month.112 Sometime after the accident, Stein left for Darmstadt;
he sent a postcard to Schoenberg from there on 31 December 1922, reporting that his knee
problem had recently worsened.113 After about four months of sojourn in Darmstadt, Stein returned to Mödling for the first time on 30 April 1923.114 Heneghan assumes that Stein was absent
111
This concert is discussed in Bryan R. Simms, “The Society for Private Musical Performances: Resources and
Documents in Schoenberg’s Legacy,” Journal of the Arnold Schoenberg Institute 3/2 (1979), 142.
112
Brezinka, Erwin Stein, 86–87.
113
Stein’s postcard to Schoenberg, dated 31 December 1922, in LC (ASC ID 16975, scan available at http://
www.schoenberg.at/scans/DVD101/16795-1.jpg).
114
Henegahn, “Tradition as Muse,” 150.
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from the 1923 meeting because of his stay in Darmstadt in the spring of 1923, but this was not
the only occasion during which he was in Darmstadt. Stein conducted Pierrot Lunaire on 5
December 1921, in the Verein concert in Vienna, and then sent a letter to Schoenberg from
Darmstadt on 10 January 1922.115 At the end of the letter, Stein writes, “When is Steuermann’s
concert? Of course, I will be definitely there.”116 As Steuermann’s concerts took place on 3 and 8
February 1922, it is very likely that Stein had returned to Vienna by early February.117 His presence in February is proved by the following event: Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire was performed
in two versions and languages (German and French) on 18 February 1922, at the house of Alma
Mahler. Stein conducted the German version with Erika Wagner, while Darius Milhaud conducted the French version with Marya Freund.118 After the concert, Stein stayed in Vienna until
early June of the year; he sent letters from there to Georg Alter (who was in Prague) between 20
February and 3 June 1922.119 In sum, Stein was in Darmstadt sometime after 5 December 1921,
and came back to Vienna by early February 1922.
However, why did Deutsch (1970) recall Stein’s presence in the meeting, despite Stein’s
own claim that he was absent? Rufer (1971) also supports Deutsch’s remembrance of Stein by
115
Stein’s letter to Schoenberg, dated 10 January 1922, in LC (ASC ID 17067, scan available at http://www.
schoenberg.at/scans/DVD101/17067.jpg). See also Muxeneder, “Arnold Schönbergs Verkündung der Zwölftonmethode,” 307; in n. 26, she points out that Stein was in Darmstadt at the beginning of 1922.
116
“Wann ist das Steuermann-Konzert? Dabei will ich natürlich unbedingt sein.”
117
Neue Freie Presse, 29 January 1922, 20. This newspaper displays an advertisement of Steuermann’s upcoming concerts on 3 February 1922, with Stefan Auber (cello), and on 8 February 1922, with Mary Dickenson-Auner
(violin). Scan available at http://anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?aid=nfp&datum=19220129&seite=20&zoom=33.
118
Marie-Claire Mussat, “La réception de Schönberg en France avant la Seconde Guerre mondiale,” Revue de
Musicologie 87/1 (2001), 157–158. Although Brezinka indicates that the private performance at Alma Mahler’s
house took place on February 1921 (Erwin Stein, 90, n. 328), this dating is not correct, as Schoenberg stayed in
Zandvoort, Holland, from October 1920 through March 1921 (see Op de Coul and Schoute, “Schoenberg in the
Netherlands,” 141). Mussat’s dating, “18 February 1922,” is consistent with the fact that Darius Milhaud, Francis
Poulenc, and Marya Freund gave a concert of French music in Vienna on 7 February 1922, whose advertisement
appeared in Neue Freie Presse, 29 January 1922, 20.
119
Heneghan, “Tradition as Muse,” 152, n. 39. Stein also wrote to Alter on 24 March and 6 April 1922.
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stating that he recorded the meeting’s minutes and wrote “Neue Formprinzipien” based on the
notes. Stein’s article was written for Von Neuer Musik, in which it was published in 1925; and
before that, in fall 1924, a pre-print of the article appeared on the occasion of Schoenberg’s
fiftieth birthday.120 In “Neue Formprinzipien,” he referred to Schoenberg’s description of the
finale of the Serenade, Op. 24, explaining that the composer made the comment at a rehearsal of
the work.121 The Serenade was premiered privately in Vienna at the house of Dr. Norbert
Schwarzmann, on 2 May 1924, and it was followed by the public premiere in the Donaueschingen Music Festival on 20 July 1924.122 Although it is not known which rehearsal Stein
attended, it is certain that Schoenberg explained the musical structure of the Serenade to Stein
when they met at the rehearsal, and this became a basis for Stein’s discussion of the piece in his
article.
Stein’s reference to the rehearsal suggests that “Neue Formprinzipien” was not based on
Schoenberg’s single meeting or lecture, but on several occasions, including private conversations.123 If “Neue Formprinzipien” was based on several meetings or lectures, Stein was not
necessarily present for all of them; he could have missed some. Yet people remembered him as
the author of the article, and assumed his presence despite a few absences. Deutsch and Rufer
must have seen Stein, who was taking notes, on at least one of these occasions.
The preceding discussion may be summarized as follows: (1) The announcement meeting
took place shortly after Schoenberg came back from Traunkirchen; (2) Stein must have been in
120
Stein, “Neue Formprinzipien.”
Stein, “Neue Formprinzipien” (1924), 300; and “New Formal Principles,” 73.
122
Stuckenschmidt, Arnold Schoenberg: His Life, World and Work, 294.
123
How also points out that “Stein’s essay was not a product of lecture notes form a public announcement, but
rather from a personal, perhaps private, conversation with Schoenberg to which Stein added his own insights”
(“Arnold Schoenberg’s Prelude,” 269).
121
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FIGURE 3. Locations of Stein, Deutsch, and Rufer after summers of 1921 and 1922
1921
Schoenberg
n
Stein
1922
1923
Oct. Nov. Dec. Jan. Feb.
Sep. Oct. Nov. Dec. Jan. Feb. March April May
Tk*
Tk
Darmstadt
Darmstadt
Name
Deutsch
?
Rufer
Berlin
Berlin
*Tk
?
=
=
=
Traunkirchen
absent from Vienna or unable to visit Mödling
uncertainty about departure date
Darmstadt at the time of the first meeting; and (3) Deutsch and Rufer probably recognized
Stein’s presence at some of the meetings that followed. Figure 3 indicates where these people
were after the summers of 1921 and 1922. If the first meeting had occurred while Stein was in
Darmstadt, after 5 December 1921 but before mid February, it was “soon after Schoenberg came
back from Traunkirchen,” and it is likely that Deutsch and Rufer saw Stein in the following
meetings or lectures. On the other hand, if the meeting had occurred in the spring of 1923, it was
several months after Schoenberg came back from Traunkirchen, and as Deutsch and Rufer were
in Berlin, they wouldn’t have seen Stein at the following lectures. The three conditions listed at
the outset of this paragraph are more applicable to the situation after the summer of 1921. If
Schoenberg’s announcement occurred while Stein was in Darmstadt, sometime between December 1921 and February 1922, then this time frame overlaps with the period during which the
early lecture series was about to begin.
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THE EARLY LECTURE SERIES AND THE ANNOUNCEMENT MEETING
Webern wrote to Jalowetz that “Schoenberg is speaking to us all in a series of lectures” at
his house in Mödling (italics mine). In that case, who was most likely in the audience on the first
day of this lecture series? Those students of Schoenberg who gathered on special occasions
during this period might be regarded as good candidates. For example, those who were invited to
the Mödling wedding of Greissle and Schoenberg’s daughter, Gertrude, on 10 November 1921,
qualify because their status as guests indicates their closeness to Schoenberg and his family. In
Figure 4a, names of the people invited to the wedding are marked “I” (for invited) in the column
headed “10/11/21 guest list.”124 Also, on New Year’s Day 1922, students and friends gathered at
Schoenberg’s house and signed two greeting cards, one for Alma Mahler and the other for
Berg.125 They are marked “P” (for present) in the column on the left side of the table, headed
“1/1/22 cards.” As one of the cards was sent to Berg, he is marked “A” (for absent). In total,
twenty students are listed in Figure 4a.
Schoenberg (1940) describes the attendants of the meeting as “all my students and
friends,” and Rufer (1971) describes them as “all students who were present in Vienna at that
time [alle damals in Wien anwesenden Schüler].” These descriptions are accordant with
Webern’s expression, “us all.” Moreover, the preceding number, twenty, corresponds to Schoenberg’s (1936) reference to “about twenty of my pupils.” From the prior discussion arises the
following hypothesis. What if the early lecture series was not a private preview, but its first day
was the announcement meeting that Schoenberg and his students talked about? If that is the case,
124
See n. 91 for the source. Some names are unidentifiable. Hermann Frischauf was the husband of Marie
Pappenheim, who wrote the text for Schoenberg’s monodrama, Erwartung, Op. 17. Names of Schoenberg’s
relatives, and his students’ wives, are omitted here.
125
Signatures of the people who were not Schoenberg’s students, such as their wives, are omitted from the list.
Erwin Ratz signed the postcard to Alma Mahler only.
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FIGURE 4.
(a) Who was invited to the first day of
the lecture series?
Names appear in…
Source
documents
Names of attendants mentioned by
P
Stein
Kolisch
Greissle [1979]
Greissle [1973]
Greissle [1965]
Steuermann
P
Ratz
Rufer
Deutsch
Polnauer
Friends
Heinrich Jalowetz
Alexander Zemlinsky
Hermann Frischauf
Oskar Adler
Egon Wellesz
I
I†
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
1/1/22 Cards
10/11/21
guest list
Josef Polnauer
Max Deutsch**
Josef Rufer**
Erwin Ratz*
Edward Steuermann
Felix Greissle
Rudolf Kolisch
Erwin Stein*
Anton Webern
Alban Berg
Othmar Steinbauer*
Josef Trauneck**
Fritz Kaltenborn**
Walter Seligmann**
Karl Rankl
Olga Novakovic
Lysette Seybert
Ernst Bachrich
Hilda Merinski
Hans Eisler
(b) Who attended the announcement meeting?
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
A
P
P
P
P
P
P
A
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
A
P
P
P
P
P
I
I
I
P
P
P
P
“I“ = invited. “P“ = present. “A” = absent.
* Indicates students who were absent from Vienna in Spring 1923.
** Indicates students who did not reside in Vienna throughout 1923 in general.
† Although only the first name “Max” appears in the list, I assume that it refers to Deutsch because there is no
evidence of another student or friend of Schoenberg named “Max” in the early 1920s.
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the students appearing in Figures 2a and 2b are very likely to have been included in the list, and
they may have been remembered by other students as well.
In Figure 4b, names appearing in the students’ recollections (from the fourth columns of
Figures 2a and 2b), and in Stein’s letter to Rufer, are marked “P” or “A.” For example, Deutsch
named Stein in his recollection, so Stein’s name is marked “P” in Deutsch’s column—in addition
to Deutsch’s name itself. Because Greissle (1973) also recalled the presence of Oskar Adler and
Egon Wellesz, their names are added to the bottom of the tables under the heading of Schoenberg’s friends. In this table, fourteen students are marked “P” at least once, and all of them are
included among the twenty students listed in Figure 4a. As discussed earlier, Schoenberg,
Greissle, and Steuermann all had similar recollections of Webern’s reaction. Greissle indicated
the presence of Rufer, Ratz, and Steuermann among the students listed in Figures 2a and 2b.
Although he did not name Deutsch, Polnauer, and Kolisch, Polanuer’s presence at the meeting
was indicated by Ratz and Stein. Deutsch could not have attended the meeting if it took place in
1923. Kolisch recalls that “[a]ll of us were of course very excited about [the new method]. None
of us had any idea what it really was” at the meeting.126 This situation is very similar to the one
described by Webern, since he expressed in his letter to Jalowetz how excited he was when he
heard about the new method. Perhaps Schoenberg’s new method was not a confidential matter
within his circle after the lectures; otherwise, Webern might have asked Jalowetz not to tell
anyone about it. Webern even mentioned sending the transcript to Jalowetz. Under such circumstances, it is inconceivable that Kolisch did not hear about the new method until 1923, as he
belonged to Schoenberg’s inner circle. As a result, all the students listed in Figures 2a and 2b
126
Smith, Schoenberg and His Circle, 205.
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must have been present on the first day of the early lectures, which was the earliest occasion to
hear Schoenberg’s explanation of the new method.
Greissle (1979) named twelve people, including Wellesz and Schoenberg’s daughter
Gertrud. Among the remaining ten people, Ratz and Stein did not reside in Vienna in 1923 for at
least part of the year. Are there other students like them, in addition to those discussed so far? In
this table, the names of the students who were away from Vienna in spring 1923 are marked by
an asterisk (*) and their rows are lightly shaded. Othmar Steinbauer was a violinist and a member of the Wiener Streichquartett, founded by Kolisch in the fall of 1921; he had left the quartet
by 8 September 1922.127 He moved to Berlin to become theater musician in fall 1922, and
worked for the Gesellschaft für moderne Musikaufführungen in Berlin with Deutsch and Rufer
in early 1923.128 Eventually, Steinbauer came back to Vienna in May 1923.129 Taken together, all
the students in this category—Stein, Ratz, and Steinbauer—were absent from Vienna or Mödling
at least between January and April of 1923.
Similarly, the names of students who did not reside in Vienna throughout 1923 in
general—such as Deutsch and Rufer—are marked by two asterisks (**) and their rows are darkly
shaded. Josef Trauneck (Trávníček) studied with Schoenberg until March 1922, then became
Kapellmeister in Prague, where he stayed until 1925.130 In November 1922, Schoenberg wrote a
letter to Georg Alter, president of the Verein für musikalische Privataufführungen in Prague,
127
Claudia Maurer Zenck, “Was sonst kann ein Mensch denn machen, als Quartett zu spielen? Rudolf Kolisch
und seine Quartette: Versuch einer Chronik der Jahre 1921–1944,” Österreichische Musikzeitschrift 53 (1998), 9–
10. When the quartet rehearsed for the new season, on 8 September 1922, Steinbauer was not a member anymore.
128
According to Steinbauer’s letter to Schoenberg, dated 20 September 1922, Steinbauer had been engaged as a
violinist in Berlin, at the “Theater in der Königgrätzer Straße,” three weeks ago (in LC [ASC ID 16852, scan available at http://www.schoenberg.at/scans/DVD104/16852-1.jpg]). Steinbauer’s absence from Vienna in early 1923 is
also indicated in Muxeneder, “Arnold Schönbergs Verkündung der Zwölftonmethode,” 307, n. 26.
129
In his letter to Schoenberg, dated 14 May 1923, in LC (ASC, ID 21802), Steinbauer wrote he would be back
in Vienna “by this weekend [schon Ende dieser Woche].” For this letter, see n. 83.
130
Zemlinskys Briefwechsel, 383.
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asking his help for Trauneck, who was “struggling desperately to survive on the meagre income
of a minor Prague theatre coach.”131 Within a few days, Alter found an additional position for
Trauneck as conductor of a local men’s glee club.
Both Fritz Kaltenborn and Walter Herbert Seligmann were Schoenberg’s private students
between 1919 and 1922. Kaltenborn must have returned to Switzerland by June 1922, as his
letters to Schoenberg between June 1922 and December 1923 are all addressed from Zouz,
Switzerland.132 Seligmann sent a letter to Schoenberg in May 1922 from Frankfurt am Main, and
this indicates that he had returned to Germany by that time.133 Seligmann then moved to the
Saxon city of Meißen in September 1922, to become Kapellmeister.134 He sent a letter to Schoenberg in December 1922 from there, and a telegram in September 1923 from Frankfurt am
Main.135
Altogether, five students would have been unable to attend the meeting if it had taken
place either in the spring or fall of 1923, and eight students—which is more than one third of
those listed in Figure 4a—could not have attended the meeting if it had taken place between
131
Alexander L. Ringer, Arnold Schoenberg: The Composer as Jew (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 167. This
letter, dated 12 November 1922, is in the Jewish National Library in Israel.
132
Kaltenborn’s letters to Schoenberg between 1922 and 1923 are dated 25 June 1922, 17 November 1922, 26
February 1923, and 6 December 1923; in LC (ASC ID 11548, 11549, 21221 and 11550, respectively). All are addressed from Haus Ulrich, Zuoz, Oberengadin, Switzerland. For example, see the scan at http://www.schoenberg.at/
scans/DVD072/11550.jpg.
133
Seligmann’s letter to Schoenberg, dated 16 May 1922, in LC (ASC ID 13350).
134
Seligmann’s letter to Schoenberg, dated 21 June 1922, in LC (ASC ID 16698, scans available at http://www.
schoenberg.at/scans/DVD095/16698-1.jpg and http://www.schoenberg.at/scans/DVD095/16698-2.jpg). Although
Seligmann signed his name as “Walter Seligman” with a single “n” (see the second page of this letter), Schoenberg
spelled his last name “Seligmann” (see his handwritten teaching schedule around 1919, reproduced in Stuckenschmidt, Arnold Schoenberg: His Life, World and Work, 256). In this essay, I adopt Schoenberg’s spelling because it
is the form typically found in the literature on Schoenberg (e.g., see Schoenberg, Style and Idea, 528, n. 1, for
“Transposition,” where the editor spelled his name “Walter Seligmann”).
135
Seligmann’s letter to Schoenberg, dated 16 December 1922, and telegram dated 13 September 1923, in LC
(ASC ID 16700 and 21559, respectively; scans available at http://www.schoenberg.at/scans/DVD095/16700-1.jpg
and http://www.schoenberg.at/scans/DVD095/21559.jpg).
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January and April 1923. Among the ten students named by Greissle (1979), three are marked
with one asterisk, and two by two asterisks. Their absence from Vienna supports Greissle’s belief
that the announcement occurred earlier than 1923.136
THE EARLY LECTURE SERIES RECONSIDERED
Schoenberg’s early lecture series has been regarded as a private preview, probably
because Polnauer’s dating had already become entrenched by the time Simms’s 1987 article
introduced the letter Schoenberg had drafted to Hauer, in which he wrote that “unfortunately, I
am not so far advanced that I can make the fruits of my inquiries in public.”137 If the official
announcement had taken place earlier than July 1922, why would Schoenberg have made such a
contradictory statement to Hauer? Here, reinterpretation of Schoenberg’s statement is necessary.
The original German text of the entire paragraph of this statement, along with the next sentence,
reads as follows:
[1] Wie Sie sich denken können, habe auch ich in diesen 12 Jahren nicht geschlafen,
sondern war bemüht, diese Ideen weiter zu entwickeln. [2] Leider bin ich nicht soweit,
dass ich meine Ergebnisse bereits veröffentlichen könnte; es wird im Gegenteil noch
einige Zeit bis dahin vergehen, weil ich vor Allem meine “Lehre vom musikalischen
Zusammenhang” schreiben will in der Grundsätze ausgesprochen werden auf denen auch
die “Komposition mit 12 Tönen” beruht.
[3] Woher mein Weg war und wo ich gegenwärtig halte, habe ich vor mehreren
Monaten in einigen Vorträgen meinen Schülern mitgeteilt [sentence numbers added].138
In Simms’s translation:
136
The number of Schoenberg’s students is likely to have decreased in 1923. Although a few people, such as
Hans Erich Apostel, joined Schoenberg’s circle by 1923, there were not many people who became his students
between 1922 and 1923, according to information provided by the ASC (see Appendix II).
137
Simms, “Who First Composed Twelve-Tone Music?,” 122.
138
Simms, “Who First Composed Twelve-Tone Music?,” 131.
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[1] As you can imagine, I have not been asleep these 12 years. I have been concerned
with the further elaboration of these ideas. [2] Unfortunately, I am not so far advanced
that I can make the fruits of my inquiries public. On the contrary, there will still be some
time before I can write my “Lehre vom musikalischen Zusammenhang” [“Theory of
Musical Coherence”] in which the fundamentals of “Composition with Twelve Tones”
will be expounded.
[3] Where my inquiry has led me and where it stands at the present I communicated
to my students in a few lectures given several months ago.139
In the immediately preceding paragraph, Schoenberg had expressed suspicion that perhaps Hauer
had developed his theory based on an idea Schoenberg had raised first, in his Harmonielehre of
twelve years earlier: to avoid the repetition of single tones in close succession as “this would
create the danger of these notes being brought into prominence and functioning as
fundamentals.”140 In sentence [1], Schoenberg states that he had been pursuing this idea in the
intervening years.
In sentence [2], Schoenberg reports the current status of this investigation. The first
clause of this sentence includes the word “veröffentlichen,” which is translated as “[to] make . . .
public” by Simms. Although the word can refer to “publicizing” or “announcing,” it also has the
meaning “to publish.” It seems more likely that here Schoenberg meant the latter, because the
clause ends with a semicolon, and is followed by another clause in which Schoenberg uses the
word “schreiben” [“to write”]. In the second clause, Schoenberg explains that he would like to
write the “Theory of Musical Coherence” before doing something expressed in the first clause.141
Because the letter draft was written in response to Hauer’s article, Schoenberg’s ultimate goal
must have been to write articles about the results (“Ergebnisse”) of his inquiries, as Hauer had
139
Simms, “Who First Composed Twelve-Tone Music?,” 122.
For the preceding paragraph of the letter, and a discussion of Schoenberg's Harmonielehre, see Simms, “Who
First Composed Twelve-Tone Music?,” 121–122.
141
Regarding the “Theory of Musical Coherence,” see Fusako Hamao, “From Zusammenhang to musikalische
Zusammenhang: A Study of Schoenberg’s Gedanke Manuscripts,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the
Society for Music Theory, Chapel Hill, NC, December 1998.
140
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done. In sentence [3], Schoenberg employs “mitteilen” [“to communicate”], which also encompasses the meaning “to disclose.” Taken together, sentences [2] and [3] may be translated as
follows (with italics added):
[2] Unfortunately, I am not so far advanced that I could have already published [articles
on] the results of my inquiries; on the contrary, there will still be some time to do so
because I would like to write, first of all, my “Lehre vom musikalischen Zusammenhang”
[“Theory of Musical Coherence”] in which the fundamentals of “Composition with
Twelve Tones” will be expounded.
[3] Where my inquiry has led me and where it stands at the present I disclosed to my
students in a few lectures given several months ago.
If Schoenberg was not at the stage of writing articles on his findings in July 1922, but had
already announced verbally the new method to his students, this supports not only Greissle’s
belief that Schoenberg’s announcement took place before 1923, but also the aforementioned
hypothesis that the lecture series was not a private preview, but its first day was, in fact, the
announcement meeting about which Schoenberg and his students spoke.
At the same time, the fact that Schoenberg explained his new compositional method in
his draft letter to Hauer implies that Hauer was not invited to the lecture series. As Greissle
(1973) recalls: “Hauer, he was not on that day there, but a little later, [Schoenberg] invited Hauer
on one Sunday and again a lot of friends.”142 This agrees with Schoenberg’s recollections, as
shown in the fifth column of Figure 1. Schoenberg generally described the attendants of the
meeting as “students” and “friends” without mentioning their names, but he referred to Hauer’s
name in (1950a). Therefore, there must have been at least one meeting in which Hauer was
invited, after the summer of 1922. In addition, Hans Erich Apostel witnessed a meeting that
142
Interview by Joan Allen Smith, 22 June 1973, in Schoenberg and His Circle, 203.
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took place in late 1923: Schoenberg showed his analysis of the piano pieces of Op. 23 to his
students, shortly after the publication of the work in November 1923.143
Schoenberg’s above statement also suggests that he had not yet wholly developed his
new idea in July 1922, and that a lecture series before July 1922 was not his original plan.
Schoenberg had to disclose his method to his students and friends in order not to be seen as a
plagiarist of Hauer, even though he had to do this earlier than intended. The motivation for later
meetings, on the other hand, might not have been the same. As his twelve-tone method
changed significantly in 1923 (as can be seen from Stein’s “Neue Formprinzipien”), later
lectures or meetings were likely motivated by Schoenberg’s wish to publicize a more developed
method, rather than stemming from lingering anxiety.
POLNAUER’S DATING RECONSIDERED
Greissle (1979) states that the misunderstanding about dating comes from the fact that
“there were several such meetings.” As he lived on the second floor of Schoenberg’s house in
Mödling (after marrying Gertrud), he is likely to have witnessed all the meetings that took place
there.144 Like Greissle, the people who lived in Vienna between 1921 and 1923 might have
attended the later meetings in addition to the first announcement meeting, regardless of the
length of their residency in 1923. For example, students marked with one asterisk in Figure 4a
might have attended the lecture series as well as the meeting(s) that took place after they returned
to Vienna in 1923. In that case, they might have confused the first announcement meeting with
143
See Szmolyan, “Die Geburtsstätte der Zwölftontechnik,” 121.
Arnold Greissle-Schönberg, Arnold Schönberg und sein Wiener Kreis: Erinnerungen seines Enkels (Vienna:
Böhlau, 1998), 15–16. The Greissles moved to an apartment on Jakob Thoma Strasse, in Mödling, in late April
1923, and stayed there until 1938, although they returned to Schoenberg’s house briefly after Mathilde’s death, at
the end of 1923.
144
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later meeting(s) in their recollections. However, the existence of multiple meetings cannot justify
the dating of Deutsch and Rufer as spring (Frühjahr) 1923, because they were not in Vienna at
that time. Although they could have simply misremembered the date, it is curious that both
would have made an identical mistake. A possible explanation is that both speculated the date
was spring 1923 after consulting the same source.
We saw in a previous section that Rufer was not sure about the year of the meeting, but
probably remembered that it occurred after Schoenberg came back from Traunkirchen. Before
Rufer, Schoenberg (1936), Polnauer (1959), and Deutch (1970) had identified 1923 as the date of
the meeting. But Schoenberg’s dating does not include the word “spring,” and his 1936 essay
was not published until 1975.145 Polnauer’s speech and Deutsch’s recollection, on the other hand,
appeared in an essay by Szmolyan, in the March 1971 issue of Österreichische Musikzeitschrift.146 Rufer could have read this essay before he wrote his article, which was published later
that year in the July–August issue of Melos, and found out that two of Schoenberg’s students
indicated the same year.147
Deutsch’s recollection (1970) was earlier: it was broadcast in a French television program
on Schoenberg, filmed at the composer’s house in Mödling, in October 1970, five months before
the publication of Szmolyan’s essay. But Szmolyan notes that he obtained a copy of Polnauer’s
speech transcript from Georg Schoenberg (the composer’s son), who was living in Mödling at
that time.148 Deutsch used to be Georg’s tutor in schoolwork such as Latin and Greek, and even
145
See Appendix I for the full citation.
Szmolyan, “Die Geburtsstätte der Zwölftontechnik,” 116–118.
147
Josef Rufer, “Begriff und Function von Schönbergs Grundgestalt,” Melos: Zeitschrift für Neue Musik 38/7–8
(1971): 281–284.
148
Szmolyan, “Die Geburtsstätte der Zwölftontechnik,” 114 and 116.
146
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after he settled in Paris, Georg sent a letter to Deutsch.149 Considering their closeness, when
Deutsch visited Mödling for filming, it is possible that he asked Georg to provide information
about his father, and heard about Polnauer’s speech through Georg. Or, Georg might have
showed Deutsch the copy of the speech, as he had done for Szmolyan. Because both Rufer and
Deutsch likely had access to Polnauer’s speech, they may have been influenced by his dating.
According to the Stein–Rufer correspondence, Polnauer, in the summer of 1957, could
not remember the date of the first meeting. So, when he delivered his speech in December 1959,
how could he identify the date as February 1923? Did he find a diary or schedule book for 1923
after he answered Stein? If that was the case, he could have pinpointed a specific date instead of
just “one morning in February.” Did he ask someone else about the date of the announcement
meeting? But none of the students listed in Figures 2a and 2b identified the date as February
1923, and other students remembered by those listed—such as Anton Webern and Alban Berg—
had already died by that time.150 It seems more likely that Polnauer’s date was speculated, based
on a source published between summer 1957 and December 1959. Schoenberg’s legacy was preserved in the United States at this time, but it was not open to public. So what could the source
have been?
In 1951, Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt published Arnold Schönberg, in which a chapter
begins as follows:
Schoenberg spent the summer of 1922 with some pupils in Traunkirchen. During a walk
he said to Josef Rufer: “I have discovered something which will guarantee the supremacy
of German music for the next hundred years.” There followed an indication of the
“method of composition with twelve tones.” At that time he had written a number of
149
Smith, Schoenberg and His Circle, 213. Georg’s letter to Deutsch, of 20 July 1939, in LC (ASC ID 23349,
scans available at <http://www.schoenberg.at/scans/DVD097/goergi-19390720-1.jpg> and <http://www.schoenberg.
at/scans/DVD097/goergi-19390720-2.jpg>).
150
Moreover, Steinbauer, Trauneck, Kaltenborn, and Seligmann were not in Vienna in February 1923.
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works in which the method had been consciously used. Schoenberg had not made any of
them public: he hesitated for years before he spoke of a discovery and before showing its
results, which he knew would take the technique of composition along quite new lines.151
Here, Stuckenschmidt mistakenly dated the Rufer episode as summer 1922.152 In the same chapter, he cited Schoenberg’s letter to Nicolas Slonimsky of 3 June 1937, which explained that he
introduced the new compositional method in some movements of Op. 25 in the fall of 1921.153
Although Stuckenschmidt seems to have been troubled by the discrepancy in the dates between
Schoenberg’s statement and the Rufer episode—i.e., the fall of 1921 vs. the summer of 1922—he
simply bypassed the inconsistency by placing these statements apart and not going into further
detail.
With the publication of Rufer’s Das Werk Arnold Schönbergs in late 1959, it became
clear that the episode occurred in the summer of 1921, around the time Schoenberg composed
the Prelude of Op. 25.154 Despite Rufer’s correction, the summer of 1922 still appeared as the
date of the episode in essays written in the early 1960s—for example, in those of Winfred
Zillig.155 Moreover, according to Stuckenschmidt’s description in the above paragraph, Schoenberg “hesitated for years before he spoke of a discovery and before showing its results.” This
151
Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt, Arnold Schönberg (Zürich: Atlantis, 1951), 64. Quoted from the English edition,
Arnold Schoenberg, trans. Edith Temple Roberts and Humphrey Searle (London: John Calder, 1959), 82.
152
It is corrected to the summer of 1921 in Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt, Schönberg: Leben, Umwelt, Werk
(Zürich: Atlantis, 1974), 252. See also the English edition, Schoenberg: His Life, World and Work, trans. Humphrey
Searle (New York: Schirmer Books, 1977), 277.
153
Stuckenschmidt, Arnold Schoenberg, 87.
154
Josef Rufer, Das Werk Arnold Schönbergs (Bärenreiter: Kassel, 1959), 26.
155
For example, Winfried Zillig writes, “In any case, Schoenberg said in the summer of 1922 to his pupil Rufer
during a walk, he made a discovery which would guarantee the supremacy of German music for the next hundred
years. This discovery was the method of composition with twelve tones related only to one another.” [“Jedenfalls
teilte Schönberg im Sommer 1922 seinem Schüler Rufer auf einem Spaziergang mit, er habe ein Entdeckung
gemacht, durch welche die Vorherrschaft der deutschen Musik für die nächsten hundert Jahre gesichert sei. Diese
Entdeckung war das System, mit zwölf nur aufeinander bezogenen Tönen zu komponieren.”] See Zillig, “Arnold
Schönberg,” in Stilporträts der neuen Musik: Sieben Beiträge von Siegfried Borris, Wilhelm Keller, Heinrich
Lindlar, Walter Kolneder und Winfried Zillig (Berlin: Verlag Merseburger, 1961), 27.
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makes it seem as if the announcement meeting occurred several years after the summer of 1922.
Although it is not known whether Polnauer had actually read Stuckenschmidt’s biography, it
should be noted that information on the chronology of Schoenberg’s life was not necessarily
accurate in 1950s.
In this regard, Rufer’s Das Werk was the most recent and comprehensive study of
Schoenberg to have been published before December 1959. In addition, Stein’s “Neue Formprinzipien” was the earliest published essay on Schoenberg’s new method, and it was well known
among his students. Accordingly, it is reasonable to assume that Polnauer consulted these two
writings when he searched for a clue about the date. In “Neue Formprinzipien,” Stein attached
the following footnote to his analysis of the third of the Five Piano Pieces, Op. 23: “It was apropos of this piece, shortly after its composition, that Schoenberg first told the present writer about
the new formal principles.”156 According to Schoenberg’s sketchbook, Op. 23/3 was begun on 6
February 1923, and completed three days later. However, he repeatedly stated in his writings that
he told Stein about the new method in 1921.
With regard to this puzzle, Maegaard speculated that Schoenberg composed Op. 23/3 in
February 1923 and told his secret to Stein at that time—although he did not deny the possibility
that the piece might have been conceived in 1921.157 Hans Oesch suggests that Op. 23/3 may
have been started in the fall of 1921, and that Schoenberg told Stein about the new method at that
time.158 Heneghan proposes that Stein’s footnote “was misplaced, added, possibly after the essay
156
Stein, “Neue Formprinzipien” (1924), 296; and “New Formal Principles,” 68.
Jan Maegaard, Studien zur Entwicklung des dodekaphonen Satzes bei Arnold Schönberg (Copenhagen:
Wilhelm Hansen, 1972), vol. 1, 96–97.
158
Hans Oesch, “Schönberg im Vorfeld der Dodekaphonie: Zur Beduetung des dritten Satzes aus opus 23 für die
Herausbildung der Zwölfton-Technik,” Zeitschrift für Musiktheorie 5/1 (1974), 9–10.
157
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was written, at the point where the words ‘third piece [dritte Stück]’ occur in the text.”159 This is
because the Prelude was simply called a “piano piece” without an opus number at the time of the
composition, and as it was written after the two piano pieces that later became Op. 23/1–2, it was
the third piano piece. Whereas the above studies presuppose that the footnote refers to Schoenberg’s private conversation with Stein in 1921, How offers a different interpretation. As the new
formal principles—illustrated in Stein’s essay—represent Schoenberg’s view in 1923, she
assumes that, in addition to the 1921 private conversation in Traunkrichen, Schoenberg told
Stein his new idea privately, shortly after the composition of Op. 23/3 in 1923, and that Stein’s
footnote indicates the latter occasion.160
Whether Op. 23/3 had already been started in the summer of 1921, the footnote has been
misplaced, or the footnote indicates a private conversation between Schoenberg and Stein in
early 1923, it is important to note that such discussions had not yet begun in 1959. It was not
until 1972 that Maegaard raised questions about Stein’s footnote, after studying Schoenberg’s
unpublished essay in which he stated that he told Stein about the secret privately, in the fall of
1921.161 Moreover, Stein did not state clearly in his footnote that the meeting with Schoenberg
was private and confidential, and neither did he specify the location of the meeting. Although
Stein was absent from the first meeting, he did not necessarily tell Polnauer about his absence
when Stein asked him about the date of the meeting. Even Rufer, who was informed about
159
Heneghan, “Tradition as Muse,” 154.
How, “Arnold Schoenberg’s Prelude,” 264–269. This interpretation is questionable because it is unlikely that
Schoenberg trusted Stein shortly after the composition of Op. 23/3 (completed on 9 February 1923) to the degree he
had in the fall of 1921. In a letter of 1 March 1923, Schoenberg wrote to Stein: “I am naturally very angry with
you,” adding that “I was really horrified when you rang up to tell me you were going away, and began to make some
kind of protest, but you didn’t catch what I said and I couldn’t make myself repeat it, in order not to be perpetually
playing the big bow-bow” (Arnold Schoenberg: Letters, ed. Erwin Stein, trans. Eithne Wilkins and Ernst Kaiser
[London: Faber and Faber, 1974], 84).
161
Maegaard, Studien zur Entwicklung, vol. 1, 96. According to his n. 146, the unpublished essay was “Wiesengrund” (cited here as Schoenberg [1950b]).
160
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Stein’s absence in the Stein–Rufer correspondence, describes Stein as the note-taker of the
meeting in his recollection. If Polnauer misinterpreted the footnote due to its ambiguity, as
meaning that “Schoenberg first told [his students and friends including] the present writer about
the new formal principles”—that is, as a description of the announcement meeting—Polnauer
easily could have found the dates for Op. 23/3 in Rufer’s catalogue (6–9 February 1923) and
reached the conclusion that the meeting must have occurred sometime in February.162
It is almost certain that Polnauer was not aware of Schoenberg’s private conversation
with Stein in the fall of 1921, because neither Webern’s letter to Jalowetz nor Berg’s notes for
KzT includes any reference to the private occasion. Although Schoenberg (1950a)—which
includes his description about Stein’s involvement—was the only article published before
December 1959 among the four statements listed in Figure 1, it is unlikely that Polnauer read the
article, as it appeared in an issue of The New York Times, which was not circulated in Vienna. If,
as How assumes, Schoenberg told Stein about his new principles privately, shortly after the
composition of Op. 23/3, Polnauer had no way of knowing about this conversation, as there is no
written document regarding the matter. Polnauer could not have asked Stein about the footnote
either, as Stein had died in 1958. Under such circumstances, it is understandable that Polnauer
assumed that Stein’s footnote indicated the announcement meeting, for which Polnauer was
present. Although Stein missed the first meeting, Polnauer still must have been able to remember
his presence in the following meeting(s) of the lecture series.
162
Josef Rufer, Das Werk Arnold Schönbergs, 22 and 115. Rufer states that the first draft of the third piece is
found in Sketchbook V, under the entry “Five Piano Pieces, Op. 23” (p. 22); he lists the content of the sketchbook
under the heading of “Sketchbook V” (p. 115), which includes the starting and completion dates of the third piece.
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REDATING SCHOENBERG’S ANNOUNCEMENT
All of the above arguments—the similarity between Schoenberg’s recollections of the
announcement meeting and Webern’s description of the early lectures, information obtained
from the Stein–Rufer correspondence (Figure 3), and the absence from Vienna of more than one
third of Schoenberg’s students in the spring of 1923 in comparison to the period between late
1921 and early 1922 (Figure 4)—suggest that the first day of the early lecture series was the very
announcement meeting that everyone remembered. Accepting this conclusion, let us move on to
the last question: When did the first meeting take place?
Webern’s letter to Jalowetz indicates that the lecture series began after Melos 3/1 was
published on 1 November 1921, but before Webern wrote the letter. The starting date can be
further narrowed down, as Jalowetz and Zemlinsky (both in Prague) were invited to the wedding
of Greissle and Gertrude, which took place in Mödling on 10 November 1921. As Webern was
also invited, he must have met Jalowetz at that time.163 If the lecture series had already started by
that time, they could have talked about the important news when they met; Webern would not
have needed to explain it in the letter. Thus, the lecture series must have started after Jalowetz
went back to Prague, sometime after 10 November 1921.164
The period can be narrowed down again because of Stein’s absence from the first day of
the lecture series. We saw earlier that Stein went to Darmstadt sometime after 5 December 1921
(after conducting Pierrot Lunaire at the Verein concert in Vienna), and came back to Vienna by
early February of 1922. According to the Society’s newsletter, a general assembly took place on
163
See Figure 4a for the list of the guests at the wedding.
This argument agrees with Muxeneder’s speculation that the lecture series must have begun between the middle of November 1921 and 7 January 1922, because of the wedding (Muxeneder, “Arnold Schönbergs Verkündung
der Zwölftonmethode,” 306, n. 25).
164
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5 December 1921, the day of the concert, to discuss the financial problems of the organization
due to hyper-inflation in Austria.165 Among the issues to which they agreed were an increase in
membership fees and the temporary suspension of further concert activities until financial conditions had improved.166 As a result, this performance became the last regular Verein concert in
Vienna, although some miscellaneous concerts followed.167 As the organizer of the society,168
however, Stein must have stayed in Vienna for some time after 5 December 1921, to cancel the
“series B” concerts, scheduled for 11 December (Mozart’s string quartets) and 18 December
1921 (Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony, arranged for chamber orchestra).169
In December 1921, Steuermann and Berg traveled together, and arrived at Frankfurt on
14 December.170 Steuermann played recitals in Darmstadt and Frankfurt, and also played Berg’s
Wozzeck for auditions at the Frankfurt and Darmstadt opera houses.171 They left Frankfurt on 21
December 1921172 and arrived at Vienna the next morning.173 Their travel eliminates the possibil-
165
Verein für musikalische Privataufführungen, Mitteilung 29 (December 1921), held at the ASC.
The newsletter also suggests a possibility of a further general assembly in the December, although it is not
known whether such a meeting took place.
167
Simms, “The Society for Private Musical Performances,” 128.
168
According to Berg’s letter to his wife, Stein “is now running the Society in Vienna (as a sort of public
company)” (Berg, Letters to His Wife, 304, letter no. 315).
169
These concerts were announced in the Society’s newsletter; see Verein für musikalische Privataufführungen,
Mitteilung 28 (November 1921), 5, in the ASC.
170
They stayed at the house of the Seligmanns, whose son, Walter Herbert, was Schoenberg’s student (Berg,
Letters to His Wife, 294–295).
171
Berg, Letters to His Wife, 294–296. Steuermann’s recitals took place on 15 December (Darmstadt) and 16
December (Frankfurt).
172
Berg’s postcard to Schoenberg from Frankfurt, 19 December 1921 (The Berg–Schoenberg Correspondence,
313). In this postcard, Berg states that “[w]e return home on Wednesday,” that is, 21 December 1921.
173
Alban Berg, Handschriftliche Briefe, Briefentwürfe und Notizen: Aus den Beständen der Musiksammlung der
Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek, ed. Herwig Knaus (Wilhelmshaven: Florian Noetzel Verlag, 2004), 227–228.
(See Österreichische Nationalbibliothek catalog number “ÖNB Musiksammlung F21 Berg 480/443.”) Although this
letter draft is undated and incomplete—it starts at the middle of the letter, and the name of the addressee is not indicated—Herwig Knaus, the editor, assumes that it was written in December 1921 to “Maria Seligman [sic],” mother
of Franz Herbert Seligmann, because Berg thanked the recipient of the letter for his recent stay in Frankfurt, and
expressed his New Year’s wishes for 1922 at the end of the draft. As shown in n. 170, it is known that Berg stayed at
the Seligmann’s house in Frankfurt in December 1921 (see Handschriftliche Briefe, 327, n. 188). In this draft, Berg
wrote, “we arrived at Vienna in the next morning, instead of 10:30 o’clock in the evening, and of course, there was
no transportation at that time.” [“[W]ir schliessl[ic]h statt abends 1/2 11 in W[i]en zu se[i]n erst nächsten Morgen
ankam[en] natürlich zu einer Zeit in wo [e]s noch gar keine Fahrgelegenheit gab.”]
166
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ity that the first lecture took place between 14 and 22 December 1921 (assuming they were
present). Also, Berg wrote to his wife about the people with whom he made contact during the
concert tour, and Stein’s name was not among them.174 The lack of Stein’s name implies that he
was still in Vienna at that time: if he was already in Darmstadt, he could have attended
Steuermann’s concert on 15 December 1921, and met Berg there.
When Schoenberg’s students and friends gathered at the house of the master on 1 January
1922 and signed two postcards, one for Berg and the other for Alma Mahler, Berg had not been
able to come due to sickness, as evidenced by Webern writing on Berg’s card, “Happy New
Year! Get well soon!”175 In the card to Alma Mahler, Mathilde Schoenberg invited her to come
to their house on Friday, 6 January 1922.176 Because Stein’s signature is not found on either card,
he must have already been in Darmstadt by New Year’s Day. On 4 January 1922, Schoenberg
sent a telegram to Berg: “Mathilde and Greissle sick with the flu, Friday unfortunately impossible.”177 This means that Schoenberg had an appointment with Berg on 6 January, but had to
cancel it; therefore, there was no lecture between 4 and 6 January, nor probably on the morning
of 7 January. On 10 January, Stein sent a letter to Schoenberg from Darmstadt, in which he
thanked Schoenberg for his letter.178 As Stein also expressed his wish to hear news from Vienna
in this letter, he must have left Vienna not recently, but some time before. Taken together, it is
reasonable to assume that Stein left Vienna sometime after the middle of December.
174
See Berg’s letters to his wife on 15 and 17 December 1921, from Frankfurt (Berg, Letters to His Wife, 294–
296).
175
“Prosit! Baldige Besserung!” (Briefwechsel Arnold Schönberg–Alban Berg, Teilband II: 1918–1935, 157).
Card to Alma Mahler, dated 1 January 1922, in the Alma Mahler and Franz Werfel Collection at the University of Pennsylvania (transcribed in ASC, ID 6778).
177
“[M]athilde und [G]reissle grippekrank darum [F]reitag leider unmoeglich.” Quoted from How, “Arnold
Schoenberg’s Prelude,” 177. Schoenberg’s telegram to Berg, dated 4 January 1922, is in Österreichische
Nationalbibliothek, Vienna (ASC, ID 6229).
178
Stein’s letter to Schoenberg, dated 10 January 1922, in LC (ASC, ID 17067); see n. 115 for this letter.
176
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FIGURE 5. When did Schoenberg disclose the new method to his students for the first time?
1921 Dec.
Stein
1922 Jan.
5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
?
Darmstadt
Berg
Frankfurt & Darmstadt
Steuermann
Frankfurt & Darmstadt
sick
flu
Greissle
possible timeframe of the announcement
?
=
=
period in which student was either absent from Vienna or sick
uncertainty about departure date
Figure 5 exhibits a summary of the above discussion, the principal points of which are:
(1) After the concert on 5 December 1921, Stein probably stayed in Vienna until the middle of
December; (2) Steuermann and Berg were away between 14 and 22 December 1921; (3) Berg
was not able to come to Schoenberg’s house in Mödling on New Year’s Day due to sickness; and
(4) Greissle had the flu after 4 January 1922. It should be also noted that Steuermann (1959)
recalls Berg’s absence from the announcement meeting, stating that “he could not come for some
reason.” On the other hand, Greissle, Ratz, and Stein support Berg’s presence, as shown in
Figure 4b.
In order to narrow down the period further, it is necessary to investigate the four pages of
notes handwritten by Berg. If the KzT typescript covers Schoenberg’s lecture given at the first
day of the series, it is likely that Berg was present to take notes, as his notes supplement both
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what was told in the lecture and the text of the typescript.179 Regarding the four pages of Berg’s
notes, How points out that they cover only the first six pages of KzT, after which point the typescript continues for seven more pages.180 How suggests that “[p]erhaps Berg’s handwritten notes
and the first six pages of KzT correspond to the first lecture in the series, while the last seven
pages of KzT correspond to the second lecture in the series, with the awkward hanging thought
leading to what will be the topic of the third lecture in the series.”181
However, it is still not clear if the first six pages of KzT represent a transcript of the first
lecture, because the typescript is a fragment and does not entirely cover all topics remembered by
students. For example, Deutsch (1970) observes that Schoenberg “spoke the first words, . . . ‘I
finally have found out that the new technique is the completion with twelve tones of the chromatic scale, but these twelve tones in interdependence from what’ [sic]—that is, those were
Schoenberg’s words, and he added, ‘And with that, our music,‘ he means Austrian music, ‘they
have for fifty years the leadership.’”182 Kolisch also recalls opening words by Schoenberg that
are similar to those remembered by Deutsch; but there is no such statement in either KzT or
Berg’s notes.183 The lack of the introductory remarks in KzT may mean that the first six pages of
the typescript represent a transcript of the first lecture, and that the introduction was edited out
for some reason. Or, it is possible that the announcement meeting started with the introduction,
and the lecture illustrated in the first six pages of KzT was not the first one in the series. Here,
179
How also suggests the possibility that Schoenberg’s lectures were recorded by a Dictaphone (a sound recording device used for dictation), although further study is necessary to confirm the use of the equipment in the
announcement meeting (see How, “Arnold Schoenberg’s Prelude,” 173–176). If this is the case, Berg was not
necessarily present at the meeting: he could have made his notes while listening to the recording.
180
How, “Arnold Schoenberg’s Prelude,” 158 and 174.
181
How, “Arnold Schoenberg’s Prelude,” 174.
182
Smith, Schoenberg and His Circle, 202.
183
Kolisch (1973) recalls the opening phrase of Schoenberg’s speech: “[H]e told us that he—but I don’t know
whether he called it—probably not discovery or invention, but he said he had found something, which would assure
the hegemony of German music for centuries” (Smith, Schoenberg and His Circle, 204–205).
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further research on KzT and Berg’s notes is needed to clarify Berg’s presence at the announcement, although that is beyond the scope of this essay.184 Regardless of what may eventually be
determined on that front, it is most likely that the announcement occurred between 23 December
1921 and 3 January 1922.185
CONCLUSION
From the above evidence, I conclude that the early lecture series was not a private
preview, but its first day was the very announcement meeting about which everyone spoke. This
meeting most likely occurred between 23 December 1921 and 3 January 1922, less than half a
year after Schoenberg’s discovery of the new method.186 The “myth” of the February 1923
meeting was created by Polnauer, who seemingly misidentified the date in his speech of 1959.
Polnauer’s dating possibly influenced the recollections of some of Schoenberg’s students in the
early 1970s, and gained further support when Schoenberg’s 1936 comments on Richard Hill’s
article were published posthumously in 1975, as the composer had already cited the same year as
184
I discuss this problem in my forthcoming paper, tentatively titled “Schoenberg’s Silence and Berg’s Notes.”
Based on Webern’s letter to Jalowetz, dated Christmas 1921, How suggests that the lecture series must have
started after Christmas because the letter “did not make a reference to twelve-tone ideas or Schoenberg’s new lecture
series” (How, “Arnold Schoenberg’s Suite for Piano Op. 25,” 176). However, this is only a Christmas greeting
letter: after a greeting message, Webern explained briefly about his Christmas present to Jalowetz, and ended the
letter without referring to any other topic (Anton Webern: Briefe an Heinrich Jalowetz, 496). On the other hand, in
his next letter to Jalowetz, dated 7 January 1922, Webern reported recent news in detail, including his concert with
Schubertbund on 10 December 1921 (NB: Webern wrote 15 December as the concert date, but the concert occurred
on 10 December; see Anton Webern: Briefe an Heinrich Jalowetz, 500, n. 18). As this concert took place before
Christmas, the lack of reference to Schoenberg’s lecture series in the Christmas letter does not mean that the lecture
series must have started after Christmas 1921. Also, How suggests that New Year’s Day of 1922 “would be the
perfect time for Schoenberg to announce his new twelve-tone ideas” because “the names on the New Year’s Day
postcard to Berg match so closely to the list of people Greissle says was there” (How, “Arnold Schoenberg’s
Prelude,” 181). Although How assumes that the lecture series took place in early 1922, I take the position that the
announcement took place as early as 23 December 1921.
186
This conclusion, however, raises a new problem to be solved. Why did Schoenberg (1936) state that he was
silent for nearly two years after the composition of his first twelve-tone piece, when instead he seems to have
disclosed his new method in less than half a year? Although he might have confused the announcement meeting
with later lectures that took place in 1923, a different explanation may be possible. A detailed discussion of this
problem will be provided in my forthcoming paper, tentatively titled “Schoenberg’s Silence and Berg’s Notes.”
185
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Polnauer. Accordingly, this “myth” was received as established “fact” by the 1980s, and its reliability was not questioned until recently.187
This conclusion is significant for theorists as well as historians because KzT—a transcript
of the lecture series—exhibits the musical concepts essential to Schoenberg’s twelve-tone
methods, such as the Grundgestalt. Although further research is needed to clarify which part of
the lecture series is portrayed in the typescript, the transcript must demonstrate the standing point
Schoenberg had reached at the time his announcement took place. As Schoenberg’s Nachlass
lacks writings on his new method that are dated before May 1923, KzT serves as a valuable
document to illuminate the early stage of his development toward the twelve-tone method.188
187
For example, Smith indicated “in February of 1923” without any reference (Schoenberg and His Circle, 197),
and even corrected Schoenberg (1940) as follows: “in 1924 [actually 1923] I had become aware that Hauer had also
written twelve-tone music” (Schoenberg and His Circle, 198, italics mine).
188
Schoenberg’s “Twelve-Tone Composition,” dated 9 May 1923, is the earliest dated article on his twelve-tone
method among the source documents deposited in ASC. For this article, see Style and Idea, 207–208.
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APPENDIX I
SCHOENBERG’S RECOLLECTIONS OF THE ANNOUNCEMENT MEETING
Schoenberg (1936)
Source: Commentary on Richard S. Hill’s article, “Schoenberg’s Tone-Rows and the Tonal
System of the Future” (in Musical Quarterly 22/1 [1936]: 14–37); published as “Schoenberg’s
Tone-Rows” (1936), in Style and Idea, edited by Leonard Stein, translated by Leo Black
(London: Faber and Faber, 1975), 213.
At the very beginning, when I used for the first time rows of twelve tones in the fall of
1921, I foresaw the confusion which would arise in case I were to make publicly known this
method. Consequently I was silent for nearly two years. And when I gathered about twenty of
my pupils together to explain to them the new method in 1923, I did it because I was afraid to be
taken as an imitator of Hauer, who, at this time, published his Vom Melos zur Pauke. I could
show that I was on the way to this method for more than ten years and could prove so by examples of works written during this time. But, at the same time, already I did not call it a “system”
but a “method,” and considered it as a tool of composition, but not as a theory. And therefore I
concluded my explanation with the sentence: “You use the row and compose as you had done it
previously.” That means: “Use the same kind of form or expression, the same themes, melodies,
sounds, rhythms as you used before.”
∑
Schoenberg (1940)
Source: Memorials written in the summer of 1940; in Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt, Schoenberg:
His Life, World and Work, translated by Humphrey Searle (London: John Calder, 1977), 442–
444.
1921 found out that the greater distance between a tone and its repetition can be produced
if twelve tones lay between. Started twelve-tone composition. Told Erwin Stein. I had now a way
I wanted to keep all my imitators at a distance because I am annoyed by them. . . .
In 1924 I had become aware that Hauer had also written twelve-tone music. Up to this
time I had kept it a secret that I do it. But in order to make clear that I had not been influenced by
Hauer, but had gone my own way, I called a meeting of all my students and friends where I
explained this new method and the way which I had gone.
Curiously when I had shown the four basic forms, Webern confessed that he had written
also something in twelve tones (probably suggested by the Scherzo of my symphony of 1915),
and he said: “I never knew what to do after the twelve tones” meaning that the three inversions
now could follow and the transpositions.
∑
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Schoenberg (1950a)
Source: “Protest on Trademark,” New York Times, 15 January 1950, p. X9; reprinted in
“Schoenberg and America,” selected and edited by Sabine Feisst, in Schoenberg and his World,
edited by Walter Frisch (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1999), 307–308.
Today atonality is tolerated by all radio listeners, on condition that it will not try to say
anything sensible, anything to move your soul, to touch your feelings.
I could not have foreseen that in 1921 when I showed my former pupil, Erwin Stein (now
at Boosey & Hawkes) the means I had invented to provide profoundly for a musical organization
granting logic, coherence and unity. I then asked him to keep this a secret and to consider it as
my private method with which to do the best for my artistic purposes.
But in the meantime, Josef Hauer had tried similar procedures, and if I were to escape the
danger of being his imitator, I had to unveil my secret. I called a meeting of friends and pupils, to
which I also invited Hauer, and gave a lecture on this new method, illustrating it by examples of
some finished compositions of mine.
∑
Schoenberg (1950b)
Source: “Wiesengrund,” December 1950; in Joseph Auner, A Schoenberg Reader: Documents of
a Life (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 338.
When a few years after the First World War I invited my friends and acquaintances to
take note of my recently developed new technique, I first explained what led me to it. Then I
illustrated the use of the rows with examples from my most recent works. At the end I
formulated my most important thesis: one follows the row, but otherwise composes as before.
[. . .]
In the fall of 1921, when I completed the first compositions based on this new method, I
called Erwin Stein . . . to come to Traunkirchen and asked him to guard as my secret for as long
as I found it necessary what I thought to share with him. He gave me this promise and kept it
loyally. When, however, I returned to Vienna some time later, I heard rumors about Josef
Hauer’s Tropenlehre, which would have made me appear as a plagiarist of Hauer. That wounded
and disturbed me, and I had to resolve to comment on it.
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APPENDIX II
A LIST OF SCHOENBERG’S VIENNESE STUDENTS, GROUPED BY THE STARTING YEAR OF STUDIES
Year
before 1904
1904
1906
1907
1908
1909
1910
1911
1912
1914
1916
1917
1918
after 1918
1919
1919 [?]
1920
1921
1921 [?]
1922
1923
before 1924 [?]
before 1925 [?]
1925
[information
unavailable]
1.
2.
3.
Name
Elsa Bienenfeld, Vilma von Webenau
Alban Berg, Karl Horwitz, Zdzislaw Jachimecki, Heinrich Jalowetz, Viktor Krüger, Anton
von Webern, Egon Wellesz
Erwin Stein
Robert Neumann
Benedict Fred Dolbin
Karl Linke, Josef Polnauer
Ernst Galitzenstein, Ernst Kraus, Elisabeth Rethi,Wilhelm Winkler, Fritz Zweig
Karl Blau, Rudolf Heller, Robert Kolisko, Paul Königer
Max Deutsch
Gottfried Kassowitz
Ernst Bachrich
Richard Leonard Ehrmann, Berta Engel-Miller, Zenka Glücklich-Frischmann, Pauline
Klarfeld, Fritz Heinrich Klein, Paul Pella, Paul Amadeus Pisk, Erwin Ratz, Selma Stampfer,
Matthias Winkelmayer
Lola Allers, Erich Allina, Johanna Beil, Hugo Breuer, Otto Breuer, Lydia Brodsky, Lily
Diamant, Frida Dicker, Edgar Elbagen, Marta Maria Frank, Harry Gröbel, Regi Hammer,
Käthe Harms, Karl Hein, Helene Herschel, Käthe Horner, Grete Jeiteles, Hanns Jelinek, Olga
Kaupy, Markus Klein, Margarete Kneplers, Martha Koref, Lili Kowalska, Else C. Kraus, Otto
Lammermann, Hans Josef Leitner, Hans Mahler, Alice Moller, Hans Neumann, Olga
Novakovic, Walter Oesterreicher, Karl Rankl, Gertrud Reif, Gertrud Schiff, Dolly Schlichter,
Viktor Schlichter, Zofia Spatz, Walter Steffen, Roland Tenschert, Josef Trauneck, Viktor
Ullmann, Maria Ulrich, Hans Urban, Eta Veith, Otto Wächter, Anton Walchner, Alfons
Wallis, A. Wallner, Anny Wottitz, Christine Wurst
Rudolf Serkin
Leo Brüstiger, Hanns Eisler, Emy Estermann, Heinrich Fath, Grete Feuer, Gustav Fuchs,
Margit Halirsz [?], Fritz Kaltenborn, Hugo [ = Fritz?] Kaltenborn, Marianne Kirschner,
Rudolf Kolisch, Edith Komeisch, Malvide Kranz, Friedrich Mahler, Hedwig Massarek, Hans
Mayer, Louise Plohn, Josef Rufer, Magda Schwarz, Walter Herbert Seligmann, Lisette
Seybert, Christian Spanner-Kamoger [?], Lona Wassertrudinger
Victor Seybert
Felix Greissle, Georg Heinbach, Othmar Steinbauer
Józef Koffler
Hermann Grab
Hans Erich Apostel
Roberto Gerhard
Löhrer
Richard Hauser
Winfried Zillig
Irene Bien, Friedrich Deutsch, Hans Enders, R. Farris, Erna Gál, Lona Truding, Rudolf
Wenzel
The above table is based on information provided by the list “Pupils of Schoenberg in Mödling and Vienna” that appeared
on the Arnold Schoenberg Center’s homepage before an update to its website. This table includes attendants of his “Seminar
for Composition,” which took place between October 1918 and June 1919, and October 1919 and June 1920. For the
attendants of these seminars, Appendices II and III of Jerry McBride, “Dem Lehrer Arnold Scöhnberg,” Journal of the
Arnold Schoenberg Institute 8/1 (1984), 37–38, was also consulted. When there is conflicting information about the starting
year of a pupil’s studies, between the list of the Arnold Schoenberg Center and the appendices of McBride, I have followed
the dating of the latter.
Those who became Schoenberg’s students in the same year are ordered alphabetically.
Parenthesized question marks in the list from the Arnold Schoenberg Center are maintained.
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∑
ABSTRACT
Arnold Schoenberg recalled that he gathered about twenty of his students in 1923, in order to
announce his new compositional method based on twelve tones, which he had kept confidential
for nearly two years. His reminiscences about this announcement appear several times in his
writings, yet his reference to the date of the occasion varies from recollection to recollection. The
reminiscences of his students are not consistent in this regard either, although “February 1923,”
identified by Josef Polnauer, has been widely accepted as the date of the meeting. However, this
date has become a point of debate in recent studies, along with the publications of newly uncovered documents related to Schoenberg’s announcement. In particular, a letter by Anton Webern,
dated 7 January 1922, reveals that Schoenberg conducted a lecture series on his new method
before 1923. In this essay, the author investigates recollections of the announcement meeting
made by Schoenberg and his students to see if they contain any confusions or misunderstandings
that might have caused an incorrect dating. After sorting out the details, the author discusses the
unreliability of Polnauer’s dating, speculates on how the “myth” of a February 1923 meeting was
created, and concludes that the first day of the lecture series (described by Webern) was actually
the oft-cited announcement meeting, which most likely occurred between 23 December 1921 and
3 January 1922.
This article is part of a special, serialized feature: A Music-Theoretical Matrix: Essays in
Honor of Allen Forte (Part III).
∑
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HOW TO CITE THIS ARTICLE
(An example based on a humanities-style note citation)
Fusako Hamao, “Redating Schoenberg’s Announcement of the Twelve-Tone Method: A Study
of Recollections,” in A Music-Theoretical Matrix: Essays in Honor of Allen Forte (Part III), ed.
David Carson Berry, Gamut 4/1 (2011): 231–297.
∑
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Fusako Hamao is an independent scholar who received her Ph.D. in Music Theory from Yale
University. Her study on the origin of Schoenberg’s twelve-tone method appeared in Current
Musicology, and on the sources of the texts in Mahler’s Lied von der Erde in 19th-Century
Music. She is currently working on articles about Schoenberg’s Gedanke Manuscripts as well as
on Webern’s activity in the wake of the Anschluss.
This article uploaded to the Gamut site on 18 April 2012.
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